It was a busy week in the Lege! 

Speaker Phelan has announced two rounds of priorities for this session. He has four priorities and they are a little different than the Gov and Lt. Gov's lists of important items. This may be a signal of some interesting times ahead. The bill authors for the priority legislation are a mix of both Republicans and Democrats. Included in the Speaker's priorities are improving the privacy and security of all Texans, better supporting mothers and children in the state, defending the state's economic growth over the past two years, and creating an opportunity for even more development as the population continues to expand at a rapid pace. 

To read about the first round of priorities click here and for the second round click here.

The House Education Committee held its first hearing on Tuesday. Commissioner Morath was the invited testimony and he laid out the priorities for the Agency. Much of this can be found here. There were questions about compensation, Houston ISD, property taxes, instructional materials, and testing. Additionally, there was discussion about rigor and HB 4545. There is some preliminary evidence that the program created by 4545 is helping, but they acknowledge that it was difficult to administer and execute. To listen to the hearing go here.

The Senate Education Committee met on Wednesday for their first hearing of the session. The committee conducted some organizational business and heard from Commissioner Morath about the agency's priorities. The Commissioner's testimony was very similar to the testimony provided to the House. There was also discussion about other issues including time for educators to prepare for their classes, rigor in our classrooms, and learning on devices vs paper. The Committee asked about HB 4545 and everyone (in the House and the Senate) seems to agree that there should be some modifications to this measure. There is some preliminary evidence that it is helping, but they acknowledged that it was difficult to administer and execute. To listen to the full testimony, click here. The testimony begins at 10:30. 

Both the House and Senate appropriators are busy listening to testimony for their respective articles. On the Education front, they have been hearing from institutes of higher education. 

The Bill Filing deadline is March 10. So far, over 4,700 bills have been filed.