Will Texas Lawmakers Adopt Common Core Student Assessments?
By Carole Hornsby Haynes, Ph.D. | March 1, 2017  Texas Insider

The 84th Texas Legislature House Bill 2804 created the Texas Commission on Next Generation Assessments and Accountability (NGAA) to prepare recommendations for statutory changes for the student assessment and public school accountability programs.  An analysis finds that if these recommendations are implemented, Texas curriculum standards will be Common Core-compliant, placing Texas on the road to National Assessments.   

Are Texas Lawmakers Funding ‘Digital Heroin’ for School Children?   
By Carole Hornsby Haynes, Ph.D.    February 13, 2017    Texas Insider

The Texas House Committee on Public Education wants to utilize high-tech digital learning to improve student achievement and fulfill future workforce demands. The popular notion is that students need computer time to compete in the 21st century.

Yet at the epicenter of the technology industry some parents hold a contrarian viewpoint, choosing instead to send their children to schools that have no computers at all and some even frown on home computers.   

Common Core Faction Tries to Take Over Texas’ English Standards
By Carole Hornsby Haynes  | January 30, 2017   Texas Insider

It seems that Texas is an ongoing battle ground for K-12 standards reviews.  We’re still in a war to get the Common Core process standards stripped out of the math standards  adopted in 2012.  Now the English standards review seems headed for a shootout at this week’s State Board of Education (SBOE) meeting.

Classroom Technology: Research Increasingly Shows No Measureable Improvement
By Carole Hornsby Haynes  |  February 20, 2017  Texas Insider

In 1996 the Telecommunications Act was enacted to provide subsidies for schools to access broadband service through the Schools and Libraries program, also known as the E-rate program.  After spending more than $40 billion of taxpayers’ money, the program is just another big government fiasco.

American K-12 education is spending nearly $5 billion annually on technology, while cutting budgets and laying off teachers.  Even though school reformers want to believe that digitized learning has the potential to revolutionize education, research is piling up that technology does not lead to measureable improvements in student achievement, but rather is depressing it.  

Texas State Board of Education Turns Back Common Core Effort, Stands Firm on English Standards
By Carole Hornsby Haynes, Ph.D. |  February 8, 2017  Texas Insider

For the past tumultuous year and a half, the Texas English language arts and reading (ELAR) curriculum standards (TEKS) have been under review – actually rewritten rather than reviewed as the panel was instructed.

A small faction attempted to hijack the current standards approved in 2008 by eliminating the literary/historical content to create new standards that are Common Core-compliant and suitable for Common Core-aligned tests.

Is There A Solution to the STAAR Problem?

By Carole Hornsby Haynes, Ph.D. |  January 26, 2017  Texas Insider

Recently Texas State Rep. Jason Isaac, vice chair of the Texas Conservative Coalition & State Representative from House Dist. 45, told Texas Insider Jim Cardle that teachers are spending 46 days of the school year preparing their students to take the STAAR test.