"The new Dan Patrick!" said Royce West, a Democratic senator from Dallas, in earshot of the Senate's crowded press table. It was Monday afternoon, midway through the Senate's discussion of their version of House Bill 5, which had been sponsored, in the Senate, by Patrick—the Republican from Houston who is chair of the Senate Education Committee and has, in both capacities, occasionally frustrated his colleagues on both sides of the aisle during the course of this session.
Not so much on Monday, though. Apart from a moment of friction with Tommy Williams, a Republican from The Woodlands who described himself as "shocked beyond all belief" when Patrick took a moment to think out loud about whether the state should pay for districts to administer a couple of optional diagnostic tests—it was smooth sailing for HB-5, one of the major education reform bills of the session.
The bill in question covers a lot of territory; several of the amendments the Senate considered actually originated as other bills, but had been turned into amendments and tacked onto HB-5 because the bills were languishing in various committees. The general purpose of HB-5, though, is to increase flexibility and rigor in Texas schools, by overhauling the state's approach to testing, accountability, and the high school curriculum plans.
On testing, the Senate agreed with the House, and millions of angry parents in Texas, that the state's current testing regime, while perhaps well intended, has gotten way out of hand; HB-5 slashes the number of mandatory end-of-course tests from 15 to five. As for accountability, the bill calls for Texas to grade its districts with letters, "A" through "F", although individual schools will still be assessed as unacceptable, acceptable, recognized, or exemplary. The idea is one that was touted by former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who has made several appearances in Austin during the course of the session, and had signed a reform to that effect in Florida (which used to rate schools with Roman numerals).
The idea is that letter grades are more transparent, because everyone knows what an "F" means, whereas a parent who hears that a school is "unacceptable" can't be sure whether that means the school is appalling or mediocre. And Patrick explained that the decision to rate districts had emerged from discussions he held with Democratic senators, including Royce West from Dallas and Kirk Watson from Austin. By rating districts rather than schools, he said, superintendents will be accountable for all the schools in the area, rather than writing any off as a perennial laggard. The reform elicited some criticism from Bob Deuell, a Republican senator from Greenville, who argued that rating a district with a "B" rather than the analogous "recognized" will have a "stigmatizing" effect. But that is, in a way, the point; the accountability advocates want the districts to aim higher than "B." The amendment to that effect passed, and West made Patrick promise that he would insist on this provision when the bill goes to the conference committee. "Not only do you have my word," said Patrick, "but Jimmie Don Aycock"—the chair of the House Committee on Public Education—"likes it as well."
Now, as for the curriculum changes. This has not been the most visible aspect of HB-5, but it has been highly contentious among experts, and it may well prove to be the most influential for future generations of Texas students. As it stands, Texas has three plans for high school graduation : minimum, recommended, and distinguished. The "recommended" plan is the default plan, and it requires four credits (that is, four years) of English, math, science, and social studies, along with some foreign language study, some physical education, and various electives, for a total of 26 credits. With parental approval, however, a student may drop down to the "minimum" plan, which requires only 22 credits, including four in English, three in math, two in science, and three in social studies.
Roughly 20 percent of Texas's high school students are, at the moment enrolled in the minimum program, and all of the senators seemed to agree that this is a problem. Advocates have, for years, argued that the state's minimum plan is too minimal, insofar as it doesn't prepare students for college or even for post-secondary training. "I really believe that the minimum plan just means a minimum-wage job," said Leticia Van de Putte, a Democrat from San Antonio. Patrick described the problem from the state's perspective: 80 percent of the "jobs of the future," he said, will require more than a high school education, and so if 20 percent of Texas's students don't finish high school, and another 20 percent squeak by with the minimum plan, then there's an obvious disjunct between the workforce the state will have and the workforce the state will want to have.
The senators broadly agreed, then, that they want more Texas students to receive a rigorous high school education, but there is some disagreement over what that means. HB-5 gets rid of the three-tiered system, and replaces it with a "foundation" diploma and four "endorsements." As is the case with the minimum plan, students will need parental approval to drop down to the foundation plan. As a matter of course, they will choose one of the endorsements—business and industry, arts and humanities, STEM, or distinguished—at the beginning of their high school program.
As Patrick explained it, these reforms will increase flexibility, because the endorsements are tailored to a student's particular skills and interests (and in Patrick's view, the two are linked; a student, he said, is more likely to excel at the courses he or she loves. "We're going to let their passion lead them instead of the system leading them," Patrick told a gaggle of reporters after the Senate adjourned for the day.) And at the same time, Patrick said, the reforms improve rigor, because the new least rigorous option, the foundation plan, requires 26 credits, and adds one more credit to the science requirement.
There were some