TEA's Annual Report and The Teacher Vacancy Task Force Report: Important Reading for School Practitioners

 Here's TEA's Annual Report. 

I'm looking forward to the technical report released in the fall by the Assessment Division. 

Here's an overview of what sticks out to me and where you might read to be informed. 

Page 14 shows our results and compares them to New York and funding. I'd be interested to see what Paul Thomas says about that data and what it really means about a reading crisis. 

Page 12 talks about a program called ACE that I wanted to learn more about based on the commissioner's remarks during the Feb SBOE meeting. He said the method was a sure thing for turning a school around. But he also noted it couldn't be done in small schools because you can't move staff around. I'd like to know if this work has been done at high schools, because as far as I've found in the research, that's a much more complex beast and not much works with such sure and high results. 

Page 8 talks about the money spent on teacher incentive allotments. Problematic in practice, because teachers tell me their schools refuse to give them the ratings on their evaluations above a certain level. They are told it is district policy not to give above a certain mark regardless of the teacher proficiency or documentation provided. 

Note also the graphic on page 8. In practicality, teachers don't have time to plan lessons. Not sure what they mean by planning their "master schedule" as that's not how we usually use that term. I can tell you this: providing instructional materials so teachers don't have to plan lessons really isn't what we are looking for here. I have YET to see materials that take the place of a thinking and reasoning being with high quality training and the time to do what needs to be done. 

See page 7 to learn more about the increases in those served by SPED. With possible changes to Dyslexia processes, that number is going to be even larger. 

Safe schools are addressed on page 6. 

Page 5 addresses how the 88th legislature changed school funding. School finance at large is on page 4. 

Page three gives you a cool overview of Student Outcomes and TEA goals. It gives a comparison for preCovid numbers too. It's SO important to know the overall goals because that's how they decide what happens with assessment, curriculum, and initiatives that roll out at the Region Service Centers. This stuff is what ends up happening TO us as practitioners. 

The Teacher Vacancy Task force report was referenced in the citations. Here is is.