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Texas lawmakers boost state spending

The Texas Legislature may not be spending quite like a drunken sailor, but lawmakers have certainly got the checkbook out as they work on the next state budget.

Following the Great Recession, lawmakers slashed spending in 2011 for schools, health care and just about everywhere else. The cupboard is full this year with the comptroller predicting the state will raise $101.3 billion, and the Republican-controlled Legislature is spending almost every dime available without busting the constitutional spending limit. Read More

House budget makers beef up school funding

AUSTIN — Texas lawmakers under pressure from educators to restore billions of dollars cut from public schools two years ago are responding in an ever-bigger way.

The House Appropriations Committee voted unanimously Thursday to boost funding for public schools by $2.5 billion in the next two-year budget period.

Schools would get an additional $500 million in the current fiscal year, which ends Aug. 31, under a second proposal by Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts that is likely to be approved by the committee as part of a separate spending bill.

That $3 billion total is twice the increase approved so far by senators. But Senate leaders have said they want to give schools a bigger increase than the $1.5 billion in their two-year budget proposal. Read More

Texas Legislators Reach Breakthrough on School Funding

AUSTIN — House leaders late Thursday announced a major breakthrough on education funding, saying they have agreed to accept Senate budget recommendations to reduce state public school funding by $4 billion over the next two years.

That’s almost half the amount that House members had voted to cut in the budget they adopted in April. Many education groups, while fighting to avoid funding cuts, have touted the Senate proposal as the preferred scenario. Read More

Texas Schools to Get $830 Million After Provision is Repealed

Texas is set to receive $830 million in federal education funding that had been held in Washington due to a dispute between the state’s Republican and Democratic politicians.

The budget bill approved by Congress on Thursday repeals a provision supported by U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Austin, that imposed certain conditions on his state in order to receive the money. Read More

Alternate Path for Teachers Gains Ground

Not long ago education schools had a virtual monopoly on the teaching profession. They dictated how and when people became teachers by offering coursework, arranging apprenticeships and granting master’s degrees.

But now those schools are feeling under siege. Officials in Washington, D.C., and New York State, where some of the best-known education schools are located, have stepped up criticisms that the schools are still too focused on theory and not enough on the craft of effective teaching. Read More

Education Reform, One Classroom at a Time

Sitting on the desk of the secretary of education are dozens of ideas bold enough to finally start solving our country’s education crisis. They are contained in applications by 40 states and the District of Columbia for grants from the Race to the Top fund, a $4.35 billion piece of the stimulus package designed to dramatically improve student achievement. Read More

Arlington Teacher Inspiring Kids To Stay Fit

During the afternoon, Stephanie McVay teaches physical education to elementary school students, but she also inspires them to live active lifestyles outside of class. Every Thursday after school, McVay can be found encouraging and teaching kids the aspects of running. Read More

Lawmakers to Launch Bipartisan Effort to Rewrite ‘No Child Left Behind’

Senior House Republicans and Democrats plan to announce Thursday that they will team up to rewrite the No Child Left Behind education law, a rare show of bipartisanship in the polarized Congress. Read More

Administration Outlines Proposed Changes to ‘No Child’ Law

The Obama administration said on Monday that it would ask Congress to raise education spending by about $3.5 billion, a 7.5 percent increase, for the 2011 fiscal year, even as it sought to limit other categories of domestic spending. Read More

TAKS No More; STAAR The New Student Assessment

The next generation of student testing in Texas will be called the STAAR. Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott announced Tuesday that the much-maligned Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills will be replaced with the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, or STAAR. Read More