The State Board of Education (SBOE) met from April 7-11 to discuss new rules for educator certification, updates to TEKS, and the Permanent School Fund, among other things. SBOE has authority over many areas in public education, focusing much of their attention on the TEKS required for all students in the state. They also oversee the Permanent School Fund, essentially a pristine line of credit for school districts to use when taking loans for new construction to ensure they get preferential interest rates. TCTA is particularly focused on SBOE's activities related to its oversight of the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC). Any rules passed by SBEC must be approved by SBOE to be finalized.

For more than a year, SBEC has worked to update a framework through which special education teachers who are responsible for teaching grade-level content can demonstrate their competency do to so without having to obtain a certification in that subject. The previous framework, called HOUSSE, allowed those teachers to credit years of experience, professional development, college credit hours, and more towards their HOUSSE worksheet and with enough credit, they would be considered competent to teach that subject.

TEA initiated a process to do away with HOUSSE and replace it with a new framework to accomplish the same purpose. Their initial proposal would have all but done away with the flexibility offered by HOUSSE to demonstrate content competency in a variety of ways and required special education teachers to obtain standard certification in any core subject they teach. TCTA moved quickly to warn TEA and SBEC of the potentially disastrous consequences of suddenly requiring special education teachers to obtain additional certification, especially considering the shortage of special education teachers in Texas. Over the course of the past few years, TCTA has worked closely with TEA and testified before SBEC to develop a new framework that maintains the flexibility of HOUSSE and adds more options for special education teachers to demonstrate their content competency. SBEC approved the new framework in February and sent it to SBOE for approval at their April meeting.

SBOE considered the new framework in one of its committees, but on a party line vote, the committee recommended that the full Board veto the item over its inclusion of the National Board Certified Teacher designation (NBCT) as a route to demonstrating content competency. Many Republicans in the Legislature and a handful on the SBOE take issue with anything associated with a national body of any kind, and NBCT is no exception; there have been similar efforts to remove NBCT as a route to obtaining a Teacher Incentive Allotment designation in the state legislature. TCTA worked to convince key members before the full Board voted to approve the new framework or not, and with those members' support, SBOE approved the framework.

Pending the passage of certain bills at the Legislature, SBOE and SBEC may have a lot of work ahead of them regarding teacher certification. TCTA will keep you updated on the latest regarding those bills and how that could affect teacher certification going forward.

Updates from the Capitol

Publication Date