Texas education

Currently, your neighborhood school can be graded one of two ways: meeting standards or improvement required. That system opens up a whole list of questions: What expectations? Is our school just barely meeting them, or one of the top in the district or in the state? What needs improvement?

According to the Texas Education Agency, 297 public schools in Texas have been failing for two or more consecutive years. Almost 150,000 children are trapped in those schools — 9,249 of them in 20 schools in San Antonio, where we are also battling huge performance gaps between Anglo students and minority students.

Four years ago, Texas became one of the first states in the nation to pass a so-called “parent trigger” law — a divisive education policy that gives parents and guardians a way to force oversight changes, or all-out closure, at low-performing public schools.

The Senate Education Committee voted out several bills Tuesday during a short, last-minute meeting, including a divisive measure to give A-through-F letter grades to every Texas public school campus based on their standardized test scores.

Somerset Independent School District is one of six districts in the nation to win $10,000 for implementing a more rigorous teacher evaluation system.

Senator Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe) issued the following statement regarding Senate Bill 14, the Parent Empowerment Bill.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick spoke Tuesday about education in a packed press conference room. Chair of the Senate Committee on Education Sen. Larry Taylor and other senators were also on hand, laying out their plan for Texas schools.

Texas got its first look into the massive education overhaul promised by Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick during the 2014 campaign.