Legislative Session: 84(R)

House Bill 2804

House Author:  Aycock et al.

Effective:  See below

Senate Sponsor:  Taylor, Larry


            House Bill 2804 amends the Education Code to revise the evaluation of public school performance. The bill requires school districts and campuses to be evaluated based on five domains of indicators, which, generally, are as follows: statewide standardized test results; test results indicating student preparedness for success in subsequent grade levels and entering the workforce, the military, or postsecondary education; student academic achievement differentials among students from different backgrounds; certain student success rates and statistics; and three programs or specific categories of performance related to community and student engagement locally selected and evaluated by each school district. The bill requires the commissioner of education to assign each public school district and campus an overall A-F performance rating and each district and campus a separate A-F performance rating for each domain. In assigning an overall rating, the commissioner is to attribute 55 percent of the evaluation to the indicators for the first, second, and third domains; 10 percent to the fifth; and the remainder to the fourth, with different specific assignments for high school campuses and districts that include those campuses and for middle and junior high school and elementary campuses and districts that include only those campuses.

            House Bill 2804 also establishes the Texas Commission on Next Generation Assessments and Accountability to develop and make recommendations for new systems of student assessment and public school accountability. The commission is abolished January 1, 2017.

            The bill takes effect June 19, 2015, except for provisions phasing in the commissioner's assignment of district and campus A-F performance ratings, which take effect on September 1 of 2015, 2016, and 2017.