Rep. Flynn Successful in Taking Action to Support Teachers in the Classroom

Austin, TX, June 12, 2011 --(PR.com)-- Today, Representative Dan Flynn (R-Van) successfully added his original HB 2491 as an Amendment to SB 1 effectively gaining support of 139 of 150 House members in the final vote. This is an effort to provide support to teachers who may be at risk with the current revenue shortfalls and to better support their resource needs in the classroom. "Teachers are the core of what works and what is good in the system," said Representative Flynn. Testing is tremendously expensive and can easily go well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars in a school district.

This original bill and current amendment was crafted by Representative Flynn after long conversations with superintendents and teachers from their respective districts. All concerned believe that the first step is to reduce the extraordinary costs of the educational bureaucracy. "Superintendents are telling us that there are more than a month of testing days in a given year," said Representative Flynn. "This adds enormous costs to the budget and takes away from valuable instructional time." It is the purpose of this amendment to reduce these costs and to ensure they protect teachers that are so vital to children's futures. The reduction in testing days alone is estimated to free up a substantial amount of funds which can be used more effectively by schools.

With this amendment, each child will still be tested in the classroom over their regular studies as normal, but the state mandated testing will be suspended for a period of two years and any funding associated with this testing could be spent supporting teacher jobs and the resources they need. Representative Flynn commented, "It is important to me that teachers and parents never forget my stand to concentrate spending on protecting and supporting students as well as teachers in the classroom."

Under this legislation, Superintendents of Independent School Districts (ISD),with concurrence from the ISD School Board, not the state, are authorized to suspend all state mandated testing and assessments for a period ending September 30, 2013. The Texas Education Agency would be required to provide guidance and support to each district to ensure they do not compromise the Federal No Child Left Behind Legislation.

Some legislators had concerns over the fiscal note that this legislation may generate but the Legislative Budget Board said there is no fiscal implication to the state anticipated in the original bill. Detractors claim that it could be expensive to cut testing but as Representative Flynn stated, "What is really expensive is cutting teachers from the classroom and until each child is treated as worth just as much as in the next one in terms of state funding, I will continue to fight for children, teachers and support of the classroom."

In addition, Superintendents may apply funds or appropriations originally intended for this testing to the retention of teachers or positions with direct student contact and involvement or consumable resources requested for classroom instruction. Funding for an Independent School District would not be contingent upon the decision to administer or not administer this change in law.

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