Bill Caption

Fiscal Notes

State

Estimated Two-year Net Impact to General Revenue Related Funds for SB313, Committee Report 1st House, Substituted: a negative impact of ($5,155,128) through the biennium ending August 31, 2017.

Local Government

The bill would require school districts to administer the Texas Success Initiative (TSI) assessment as designated by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board  to each 10th grade student enrolled in the district by April 1 of each school year. The bill would require a student's admission, review, and dismissal committee to determine if the assessment instrument is appropriate for students enrolled in a special education program.

School districts and open-enrollment charter schools would incur costs related to administering the TSI assessment to each 10th grade student enrolled at the district. These costs would vary amongst districts depending on the number of 10th grade students enrolled. TEA estimates a cost of $10.9 million in fiscal year 2016 and $11.1 million in fiscal year 2017 to administer the tests to all 10th grade students.

School districts and open-enrollment charter schools may incur costs related to reporting to PEIMS on a more frequent basis.

Bill Analysis

SB 313 would require the State Board of Education (SBOE) to review the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)  of the foundation curriculum subjects and narrow the scope of standards and skills for each grade level and would have to consider college readiness standards and the time in which the subject can be taught. The bill would prohibit SBOE from adding to or modifying the content and scope of standards and skills for any subject in the foundation curriculum under Section 28.002(a)(1) unless modifications are made in accordance with this section until the review and modification under this section is complete.

SB 313 would require a school district to administer an assessment instrument designated by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) under Section 51.3062(c) (relating to assessment instruments designated by THECB for use by institutions of higher education) to each student in the district enrolled in the 10th grade only for diagnostic purposes of the student. It would require a detailed report on the student's performance on the assessment to the student, the student's parent or parental relation, and the student's teacher. 

Vote Recommendation Notes

05/24/2015 update:

Minor changes were made to this bill that do not affect our vote recommendation. The second chamber sponsor is Representative Aycock.

First chamber recommendation:

The bill abridges the principle of limited government by diminishing the quality of public education through narrowing the scope of curriculum to match standardized testing. SB 313 would add additional regulation to the education arena by requiring curriculum to be taught in accordance with required tests and would restrict the State Board of Education's authority over curriculum modification. The test that would be required to be administered in the 10th grade also could not be used for outside empirical purposes to assess overall performance of students or the school district. For these reasons, we oppose SB 313.