It looks like we need more highly qualified educators to run for Texas State Board of Education. I don’t have anything against being a liberal, conservative, or independent on the board, but I do have a problem with an education board made of people who haven’t taught in the classroom.

I was very concerned about the new curriculum standards the board created for language arts this fall. The previous standards were closely based on standards created by NCTE, a group who should make standards. Luckily TEA got the best teachers in the state to interpret the standards to create a meaningful and sound set of state tests. The tests have more influence on the classroom than the standards, so we dodged a bullet in this case.

Now there’s national attention on what’s going into Texas textbooks. John Stewart illustrated the problem on his 3/17 show.

At the end, he suggests getting elected to TX SBOE. You only need 500 signatures, to be a Texas resident a while, and a few more qualifications.

I was most happy to hear that the new TEKS–which I have been leery of–are being assessed by a test designed by teachers. The TEA has selected teachers to figure out what parts of the new TEKS are even assessable. Also, until the new TAKS tests are deployed, the TAKS will only assess the overlap of the old TEKS and the new TEKS.

The speakers also reminded us of the TCTELA anual conference January 22-24, 2010, in Austin and the Abydos/NJWPT conference March 4-6, 2010, in Houston.

The food was good, too.