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The Third Special Called Session of the 79th Texas Legislature passed House Bill 1, which became Section 28.008 of the Texas Education Code under the title, “Advancement of College Readiness in Curriculum.” This section requires the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) to establish Vertical Teams (VTs) to develop College Readiness Standards (CRS) that address what students must know and be able to do to succeed in entry-level courses offered at Texas institutions of higher education.

The statute required the formation and convening of VTs comprised of secondary and post-secondary faculty* from four subject areas: English/ language arts, mathematics, science, and social science. The VTs met four times, in February, March, June, and August 2007, and also worked between meetings in order to produce a draft set of the CRS that could be presented to the THECB and the State Board of Education (SBOE) and then be reviewed more broadly within the state. The statute further required that the results of the VT process ultimately be adopted by the THECB and approved by the Commissioner of Education for alignment with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).

This document contains a draft of the CRS produced by the Vertical Team process. This draft was presented to the THECB at its October 25 meeting, at which time the board accepted the CRS for the purpose of releasing the standards in draft form for public comment between October 26 and December 10, 2007. For those wishing to offer comments on the standards, the preference is to analyze each set of standards separately and offer recommendations or modifications on the online public comment form.

The standards will also be presented to the State Board of Education during its November 14-16 meeting. Upon completion of the public comment period, the VTs will reconvene to review and consider the comments received during the review period in order to develop a final version of the CRS, which will be submitted to the THECB and the Commissioner of Education in January 2008.

Web posted: 10/31/07