House Bill 1605...the death of K-12 education by a thousand cuts. Talk about disempowering and de-professionalizing teachers while centralizing power in the State Board of Education! Geez, what a boondoggle! This bodes horribly for public education in Texas. State leaders so want to micromanage the k-12 classroom. The college classroom, too! Read on.
-Angela Valenzuela
Texas teachers would get less control of classroom lessons under bills approved by state lawmakers
Bills approved in Texas House and Senate seek to fundamentally transform how classrooms are run, giving more power to the Texas Education Agency.
A proposal on the verge of passage by both the Texas House and Senate has the potential to fundamentally transform the way Texas classrooms are run, pulling power away from teachers and local school districts, and giving more to the Texas Education Agency.
PUBLIC EDUCATION CLASH: Gov. Abbott threatens special session if Texas lawmakers don't deliver on school vouchersTraditionally, the state has offered curriculum standards that are basically a list of things students are expected to know for standardized tests. Districts are free to decide what they will teach from that list, and how they will do it.
House Bill 1605 would authorize the state to approve electronic K-12 curricula that cover the state standards, and devote several hundred million dollars annually to pay school districts to use them. In other words, the state would offer ready-made lesson plans, and districts could require their teachers to use them, sacrificing much of the teacher's autonomy in exchange for extra money and a guarantee that the materials cover the state requirements.
School districts wouldn't be mandated to use the new materials, but the extra money is certain to be a powerful incentive for districts around the state struggling with tight budgets and a teacher shortage.
Concerns about the bill don't break down along neat political lines. Some Democrats and teachers unions have complained it ties the hands of teachers, stripping the job of creativity.
Proponents argue that the current lesson plans of many schools don’t sufficiently cover the state standards, leading to worse test scores. They also say ready-made lesson plans could make overworked teachers' lives easier, as they wouldn’t have to both craft a curriculum and then teach it.
The measure is said to be a top priority of Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath, and it's been pushed in the Legislature by the leading education policymakers in the House and Senate.
The bill already passed the House by a 105 to 39 margin, while it passed the Senate 22 to 8. The two chambers each tweaked the policy slightly, so they’ll need to iron-out differences before they can send it to Gov. Greg Abbott's desk for final approval.
Critics say the hundreds of millions of dollars for the curricula would be better spent in other ways, such as payraises for teachers. Others have attacked the measure as a corporate handout, particularly to the curriculum-development company Amplify, which received a $19 million no-bid state contract during COVID.
For this reason, inside the Capitol the measure has become known as “the Amplify bill," and some oppose this effect of making the education system more technocratic and concentrating more power in the state education agency.
