GoArts News: May 13, 2009
SB 1364 Requiring Local Boards of Trustees to Develop and Strictly Enforce a Policy Limiting TAKS Pull-out Voted Out of House Public Education Committee
Late Tuesday evening, May 12, the House Public Education Committee voted SB 1364 out of committee and sent it to the Calendars Committee to be scheduled for a hearing on the floor of the House. This bill limits the practice of pulling students out of regular classes for special tutoring to prepare for the TAKS test. This practice has devastated many fine arts programs across the state. While time is running out, there is sufficient time for this bill to clear the House and be returned to the Senate for final approval before being sent to the Governor Perry for his signature.
SB 1364 was amended in the House Public Education Committee to address the concerns of school districts about the need for more flexibility to address TAKS tutoring and remediation for certain students. The bill now allows a district to pull a student out for more than 10 percent of the class periods, but only with the written permission of the parent or guardian. The bill as originally filed allowed a principal to pull a student up to 25 percent of the time if a plan was in place for the student to make up the missed work. As this bill has been modified along the way each version has been tighter in limiting pull-out from academic subjects such as fine arts for TAKS drill. This bill is all we could have hoped for and more. We hope it will continue to move through the process.
We are indebted to Senator Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) for her willingness to sponsor SB 1364 and for Representative Rob Eissler (R-The Woodlands) for his efforts to guide this bill through the House. As the chairs of the respective education committees in the Senate and House, they each have been very supportive of fine arts issues while carrying out their monumental responsibilities of guiding public education in this state.