After passing the House on a 78-58 vote, the Senate Finance committee held a brief hearing to discuss HB 8 by Rep. Brad Buckley (R-Salado), sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston).
Bettencourt has long been the champion of school accountability in the Senate, often observing that "What gets measured, gets fixed." During the regular session, he voiced his frustration with ongoing lawsuits by school districts against TEA regarding changes to the A-F accountability system and focused much of his energy on preventing such lawsuits from happening again. Only recently have accountability ratings from the COVID years become available.
During the Senate Finance Committee hearing on HB 8, Bettencourt expressed a desire to restore social studies and history tests to mandatory testing and asserted that Buckley agrees.
The bill passed the committee 12-2.
On the Senate floor, Bettencourt described the main features of the bill, including that the beginning- and middle-of-year tests would be norm-referenced, while the end-of-year test would be criterion referenced. Other senators had a handful of questions, but mostly agreed that testing reform is a major issue.
The bill passed the Senate 21-5.
HB 8 now returns to the House where Buckley and the other House members will decide whether to concur on the Senate's changes or appoint a conference committee.
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