(AUSTIN) — House Speaker Dade Phelan has created the House Select Committee on Educational Opportunity and Enrichment, a 15-member committee of House members to consider and make recommendations related to K-12 education policy.
The Texas School Alliance, which represents 45 of the largest school districts in Texas, issued the following statement after the Speaker’s announcement:
“We applaud Speaker Phelan for recognizing that this year’s legislative session ended without the results that Texas public school students deserve, such as tangible investments in Texas classrooms and higher salaries for educators across the state. This committee gives legislators another chance to provide the help that schools across Texas drastically need. We encourage the members of this committee to focus their work on investments that will impact all students in public schools as those schools struggle to manage staff vacancies and inflation-driven cost increases.
“We are glad that one of the committee’s charges is modernizing assessment and accountability measures and we urge legislators to take this opportunity to create a testing-and-accountability system that better reflects a school’s true performance. Our current system relies too heavily on state-required tests to measure schools.
“Throughout the legislative session, a bipartisan coalition in the Texas House stood against private-school voucher proposals that would have harmed students, schools and taxpayers. This committee should honor the stand taken by that coalition and continue advocating for keeping public dollars in accountable public schools.”
— HD Chambers, Texas School Alliance Executive Director
