K-12 Education

Austin ISD announced the changes in an email to parents Tuesday evening, days after saying its original plan to close 13 schools would move forward.

The district and school board held several feedback meetings with the community before releasing the revised plan. The board is expected to vote on the plan on Nov. 20.

The long-awaited vote survived objections from the panel’s most right-leaning Republicans, who criticized the lessons as “un-American woke indoctrination.”

House Bill 2 includes $4.2 billion for pay raises and nearly $2 billion to overhaul special education.

The Texas House originally passed House Bill 2, a multibillion-dollar school funding package, in April. But the version of the legislation heard Thursday by a panel of Texas senators includes several significant changes from what the House approved.

The sweeping legislation creates Education Savings Accounts, which allow parents to use state tax dollars toward private education costs. With $1 billion in initial funding, Texas’ program is the largest day 1 plan of its kind in the nation.

The Texas House Public Education Committee passed a sweeping school finance proposal on Thursday, along with a bill that would create a program allowing parents to use public funds to pay for private schools.

The bill would ban diversity, equity and inclusion policies related to hiring and programming, while creating ways for parents to complain about violations to the DEI ban.

The Texas House has filed its school voucher bill. The legislation differs in several ways from what the Senate has already passed. The two chambers would have to hash out their differences before sending any legislation to Gov. Greg Abbott for his approval.

National test scores painted a bleak picture of academic recovery for both Texas and the U.S. following the COVID-19 pandemic. But researchers found that there were positive signs for individual districts.