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Revised high school language arts standards win approval

June 26, 2017

AUSTIN - Revised high school English language arts and reading and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) standards, won final approval from State Board of Education members June 23.

The new high school TEKS will be implemented in the 2020-2021 school year.

The proposed revisions to the curriculum standards look significantly different from the existing standards because they are grouped into new strands, but the concepts remain similar.
 
The board in May approved updated English and Spanish Language Arts and Reading Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for kindergarten through eighth grade.
 
Hundreds of Texas educators were involved in the revisions process over the past two and a half years.

In an effort to bring even more stakeholders into future review work and to work more efficiently, the board approved substantial changes to its TEKS review process.  The new process will be used beginning with the next subject area to be streamlined, which will be social studies.
 
During this meeting, the board also began work for the next phase on the development of a Long-Range Plan on Public Education. The board, with assistance from the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Comprehensive Center at the American Institutes of Research, hopes to complete work on this plan by the fall of 2018.
 
The board began assembling an 18-member steering committee that will recommend education priorities to the board. The committee will be composed of five State Board of Education members, including the board chair and the chair of the Committee on School Initiatives; one representative each from the Texas Education Agency, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Texas Workforce Commission; and 10 stakeholders to be nominated by the remaining board members.

State Board members serving on the committee are:

  • ·    Donna Bahorich, R-Houston, the SBOE chair
  • ·    Barbara Cargill, R-The Woodland, chair of the board’s Committee on School Initiatives
  • ·    Marty Rowley, R-Amarillo, vice chair of the board
  • ·    Tom Maynard, R-Florence
  • ·    Georgina Pérez, D-El Paso

The 10 public stakeholders may be educators, parents, business and industry representatives or students. A nomination process to fill these seats on the committee will begin shortly.
 

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