Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Its been just a little over a year since the Legislature adjourned from the called special session last summer. Were also just about 120 days away from the 86th Legislative Session which means weve entered the home stretch of whats sometimes referred to as The Interim. So I wanted to take the opportunity to provide an update on what weve been working on over the last few months of the interim.
As I have said before one of the advantages of a Legislature that only meets every other year is the chance to really dig in on issues during the interim talk to a number of people from across the political spectrum on topics and take the time to craft really good legislation. Im not saying thats always the result but the opportunity is there!
We have also continued to work on water issues in the Natural Resources Committee on school finance solutions as part of a Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute work group ongoing concerns about financial shortfalls for our Teachers Retirement System health benefits plan and a host of other items.
Also included below is a section with my thoughts on last months release of the revised A-F Grading System for Public School Districts. This has been a fairly contentious topic in the education world so we thought some readers might like more details.
In addition to making a living the largest portion of my time in the interim has been spent in the Human Services world specifically the foster care system and Medicaid.
During the last session we were able to pass some significant bills designed to accomplish major reform of the Texas foster care system. As important as that was the real work has just begun as it is now up to the Department of Family & Protective Services (DFPS) to implement those changes. My staff and I have been keeping tabs on that process to see whats going well what is not being done and to work with DFPS to ensure implementation and regulation is in line with the passed legislation. Well also be looking at ideas to continue to improve outcomes for kids who are in danger of entering or who have already entered the system.
Additionally the House Human Services Committee (where I serve as Vice Chair) has had a couple of hearings surrounding Medicaid Managed Care a model by which health insurance firms contract with the state to manage medical services to Medicaid clients. The managed care model has had a number of benefits to patients and taxpayers alike. It has reined in growth of healthcare costs to those covered and has helped coordinate the vast array of health services provided to Medicaid clients.
However it is not without its detractors who suggest that the insurers who are paid to take care of their clients are profiting by denying necessary medical services. One of the primary jobs of our committee has been and will continue to be hearing from all parties and ensuring that these programs work as well as possible for everyone involved.
Over the next few weeks well be writing in more detail on these and other topics.
Implementation of Community Based Care
The interim period between legislative sessions gives me and my staff the chance to do in-depth research on various policy issues but it also affords the opportunity to monitor the implementation of bills that we worked on during the last session.
This is a crucial task because even on the off chance the Legislature passes well-thought-out laws poor implementation can end up doing more harm than good.
During the 85th Session I served as the House sponsor of Senate Bill 11 (by Schwertner) which aimed to reform management of the Texas foster care system. SB 11 created new statutes requiring the Department of Family & Protective Services (DFPS) to expand the pilot program called Foster Care Redesign which was renamed Community Based Care.
Under the law DFPS must contract with non-profit or governmental providers to manage foster care services at a community level. The goal of this effort is to leverage local community expertise and resources to safely reunify families or to get kids who cannot return to their parents to permanent adoptive homes.
Since 2014 DFPS has contracted with Our Community Our Kids (OCOK) in the Fort Worth area to manage foster care homes and develop additional capacity so that kids who have to be removed from their parent(s) have a place to go near their homes. SB 11 authorized more of the states 17 DFPS regions to move to to the community based care model and to begin an effort to allow those regional providers to work directly with families and children through the transition of case management from the Department. Close to home DFPS has signed a contract with non-profit provider 2Ingage to manage foster care capacity in Region 2 which includes Abilene and Wichita Falls. The Department also awarded a third contract to The Childrens Shelter to manage these services in Bexar County. Two more regions have been announced for the transition to the community based care model: Region 1 which includes Lubbock and Amarillo and Region 8B which includes counties surrounding San Antonio. While this is good progress there is much more work to be done. DFPS has been slower than I would like in moving OCOK to the second phase of the model and allowing it to work directly with families and children. This is probably the most crucial piece of SB 11.The true innovation in this model can be summed up in one word accountability. It is the difference between an organization that is accountable for the outcomes of children in their area and the local relationships that are part of that versus an Austin-centric model where there is a distinct lack of accountability for outcomes.
In community based care everyone knows where the buck stops and it stops much closer to the child.
Additionally community based care allows a local provider to work with a variety of local organizations including foster care support programs child placing agencies churches community health care local mental health authorities and workforce development boards to really address the unique needs of each family in crisis. This is something that will begin to stem the issues of joblessness and drug addiction that bring so many families into the CPS system in the first place. Over the next few months the House (and the Senate) will continue to look at this issue in both the Human Services committees as well as the budget committees. I am also going to monitor the rollout of CBC in Region 2 as the new provider here 2INgage gets ramped up and begins managing the foster placement services. The implementation of community based care will take some time and certainly there may be some hiccups along the way but I think everything is trending in the right direction. I appreciate all feedback and insights from folks here locally about ways to improve implementation and keep DFPS focused on innovations that will reduce the time that children spend in the foster care system and lead to better outcomes for kids and families. The Texas Public School A-F Accountability System Last month the Texas Education Agency released its A-F grades to over 1100 school districts the next phase in a heated debate on school accountability that has embroiled parents teachers and administrators all over the state.- If youd like to see what grade your childs district received you may do so here: https://txschools.org/
- It is an attempt to give parents and administrators more information to analyze where their districts or campuses are doing well and where they can improve.
- It is an attempt to show certain schools that are high-performers according to certain criteria and potentially help encourage best-practices for school districts across the state.
- It is not perfect I believe it is still entirely too reliant (as is our entire public school model) on STAAR scores.
- It is not the end-all be-all measure of school quality or effectiveness as it is impossible to encapsulate all of the disparate factors that comprise a quality education into a single letter grade or numeral value.
- Student Achievement (STAAR scores graduation rates college career or military readiness)
- School Progress (broken down into two parts academic growth (year-over-year improvement based on Math and Reading STAAR scores) and relative performance (how the district/campus compares to districts/campuses with similar percentages of economically disadvantaged students)) and
- Closing the Gaps (how different groups of students (special education race family income etc.) are doing in testing graduation English language proficiency and whether or not the achievement gaps are getting better or worse)).
In order to address concerns that the ratings would simply reflect wealth levels (or lack thereof) of the attending students the grade is based on the better of the student achievement results or school progress. That means that a district that has poorer test scores but expansive year-over-year improvement will be graded on that improvement not just the lower starting point.
One concern I heard from superintendents in the discussions about A-F prior to last session and during the debate on HB 22 was that it was unfairly designed to result in a bell curve distribution of grades meaning that no matter the performance of schools and districts in the real world there would always be a proportional number of As Bs Cs Ds and Fs. That is not the case with this system.
Additionally the greatest concern from superintendents and educators is that the system relies heavily on the STAAR test which is a one-day snap shot in time of a students ability to take a test. I look forward to the opportunity to continue to work with parents and educators to develop a system that measure the abilities of the whole child.
Obviously this is an oversimplification of a system that is by its very nature fairly complex. If youre interested in diving into the details you can do so at the TEA website.
Please feel free to forward this newsletter along to friends and family and if you have not done so already please find me on Facebook and Twitter. As always if you have further questions please call my office at 940-767-1700 or send me an email at votejamesfrank@gmail.com.
We appreciate your interest in state government and it truly is an honor to serve as your State Representative.
Currently representing District 69 for his 3rd term in the Texas House of Representatives State Rep. James Frank serves as the Vice-Chair of the Human Services Committee and is on the Natural Resources Committee and the Local & Consent Calendars Committee.
