Teach the Vote's Week in Review: Nov. 6, 2015

Date Posted: 11/06/2015 | Author: Jennifer Mitchell, CAE
In this week's wrap-up of education stories making the news in Texas, we showcase the following:

RACE | NAME | PARTY | EARLY VOTES | PERCENT | TOTAL VOTES | PERCENT | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
State Representative District 118 - Unexpired Term | ||||||||
Anthony Alcoser | DEM | 437 | 12.28% | 932 | 12.06% | |||
Robert A. Casias | REP | 157 | 4.41% | 411 | 5.32% | |||
Gabe Farias | DEM | 680 | 19.11% | 1,452 | 18.80% | |||
Michael Holdman | REP | 450 | 12.64% | 1,028 | 13.31% | |||
John Lujan | REP | 1,042 | 29.28% | 2,172 | 28.12% | |||
Tomas Uresti | DEM | 792 | 22.25% | 1,727 | 22.36% | |||
----------- | ----------- | |||||||
Race Total | 3,558 | 7,722 | ||||||
Precincts Reported | 76 | of | 76 Precincts | 100.00% |

As of this week, final interim charges have been put in place now for both the Texas House and Senate. House Speaker Joe Straus (R-San Antonio) released the charges for House committees on Wednesday, while Senate interim charges were announced by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) last month. Committees on both sides of the state capitol will be taking up such hot-button issues as school finance, privatization, retired educators' benefits, and payroll deduction of public employees' voluntary dues for professional associations, such as ATPE. Read more about the specific issues that legislators on key committees will be studying over the next year in our Teach the Vote blog post from yesterday.
As further evidence of lawmakers' ongoing interest in lowering property taxes, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced this week his appointment of seven senators to serve on a new select committee that will make recommendations for reforming Texas's property tax system. The Select Committee on Property Tax Reform and Relief will be chaired by Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) and also includes Sens. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe); Kelly Hancock (R-North Richland Hills); Eddie Lucio, Jr. (D-Brownsville); Charles Perry (R-Lubbock); Van Taylor (R-Plano); and Carlos Uresti (D-San Antonio). According to a press release from the lieutenant governor, the select committee will hold public hearings around the state and make recommendations to the larger Senate Finance Committee on "ways to improve the property tax process as well as reduce the burden on property owners."
The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has released a new report on states' teacher evaluation policies. The report entitled "State of the States 2015: Evaluating Teaching, Leading and Learning" looks at state trends in teacher evaluation policies, along with measures of principal effectiveness. Many states have implemented new laws requiring annual, performance-based appraisals of their teachers, often related to efforts to obtains waivers of federal accountability requirements under ESEA/NCLB. The NCTQ report shows that even under newer and more rigorous evaluation frameworks, most states still identify the majority of their teachers as effective or highly effective – a trend that NCTQ calls "troubling." The report criticizes Texas for not "requiring evidence of student learning be the most significant criterion" in a teacher's evaluation. Read the full report here.
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