TX Board of Ed: Don't Take Quietness for Granted

Today's meeting of the Board of Education whipped along pretty smoothly and quietly, but don't let the calm deceive you: at least four significant issues came up that will impact everyone (publishers, etc.) bringing content before the Board...

(Well, it was kinda quiet, except for the pleasant, but certainly loud, performance by the Lake Travis Fiddlers, and then the unpleasant moment in the public comment period, when the guy who wanted to call the Board to task got in a shouting match with Chairman McElroy until his microphone was turned off by Ed. Agency staff on David Bradley's orders...)

1. Career and Technical Education course approval–Most publishers consider this to be a small market, and not one worth getting into...BUT...at the Board's July meeting, they will be voting on which of the 110 new courses (slimmed down from a pool of 600+) should be worthy of science or math credit in high school. This is important because with the strengthening of requirements to 4 years of science and 4 years of math, they're going to need to send many kids somewhere besides calculus and statistics their senior year. Some of these "niche" courses may balloon in size to be almost "basal-"sized, offering growth potential in times when that's rare.
2. Blurring the lines between curriculum and textbook–The Board was much flustered by the fact that, as part of the Career and Tech Ed. standards, the Dana Center for Math and Science Education at UT (http://www.utdanacenter.org) presented a proposal for a new course, entitled "Advanced Mathematical Decision Making," and intended to be one of those options for the fourth year of math. What got the Board all queasy was that the Dana Center proposed its own TEKS that it asked the Board to approve, and will be publishing its own material for the course and providing training, which they'd offer for free for the first two years--the Board has no authority or control over free materials. Given the Dana Center's connection to some math-reform initiatives that are unpopular with The Faction ("Rainforest Algebra," screeched David Bradley (R-The Faction, Beaumont)), this raised suspicions immediately that there was some hidden agenda that would involve making the Dana Center a lot of money, perhaps by a drug-dealer-style bait-and-switch ("Oh, the first try is always free..."). The Education Agency's attorney, David Anderson, made it clear that any party (person, group, corporation, whatever) can propose rules and TEKS for courses they think the Board should adopt, and the Board is required by law to at least consider them. (This opens up a veritable Pandora's box of opportunities and scary things...)
3. Changing the procedure for TEKS-writing–Starting with the already-in-progress-but-stalled Social Studies TEKS, the first step is now solely for the Board's hand-picked "experts." (That last word is in quotes because the only qualification needed is that 2 Board members agree that you're an expert--this has already led to some interesting nominations that cannot, by Board rules, be challenged...) They take the first stab at recommendations for revising the TEKS. Only then does a panel of teachers, parents, business and industry leaders, and employers nominated by the Board begin work on the actual revisions. The "experts" return again to provide more recommendations on the revisions. (Given that 3 of the science experts disputed the credentials and credibility of the other 3 and vice versa, this is likely to cause more controversy than it will prevent.) To prevent leaks, all documents the panel works with must be left behind with Education Agency staff (who, of course, are required to make sure that every Board member gets a copy, probably insuring just as many leaks...)
4. Controversy can be found in any discipline–By virtue of a raft of amendments, the Board members demonstrated that they can find something political in anything, no matter how innocuous it may seem to the uninitiated. Terri Leo (R-The Faction, Spring) was concerned that math-class discussions of using statistical methods to gauge "fairness" of distribution systems would wind up being a critique of private property ownership. Cynthia Dunbar (R-The Faction, Richmond) was worried that students might not understand that amending the Constitution illegitimately (i.e. by court decision) doesn't count. David Bradley (R-The Faction, Beaumont) insisted on adding a new standard to "Outline and analyze the history and the impact of the use of the gold or silver standard in monetary policy" in a course in the Business Management and Administration category. (We won't even bother going into the extensive discussions of "cow" vs. "cattle" vs."livestock"...)