Texas High Performance Schools Consortium

The Consortium was created as a means to begin work to fulfill the vision outlined by Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas (the TASA visioning document), published by the Public Education Visioning Institute in 2008.

With a visioning document for school transformation in hand, the Institute sought a means to begin work to fulfill that vision. They conceptualized a network of school districts that could do the work and described it in the Guidelines for Establishment of the High Performance Schools Consortium.

In 2011, the 82nd Texas Legislature made the Consortium official with Senate Bill 1557. The law established the Texas High Performance Schools Consortium (THPSC) and charged it with improving student learning by developing innovative high-priority learning standards and assessment and accountability systems.

The THPSC — originally 23 Texas school districts — were selected in 2012 by the commissioner of education. The Consortium began work in October 2012 with superintendents and district teams working through the fall semester to determine strategy for conducting the THPSC’s work as specified in Senate Bill 1557 and to produce the its first report, delivered in December 2012.

It did not take long after the THPSC began work for it to become clear that efforts to develop new assessment and accountability systems would be constrained by having to operate under the existing ones. Under the authority granted it by Senate Bill 1557, the Consortium submitted recommendations to the commissioner of education and Legislature prior to the 2013 session in the form of House Bill 2824. The bill would have allowed THPSC districts flexibility, via a pilot program, from certain constraints of the accountability system to allow them to advance their research, exploration, development, and implementation of new assessment and accountability systems that are not overly reliant on high-stakes testing. However, despite unanimous approval in the Texas House and Senate, Gov. Rick Perry vetoed HB 2824.

In August 2013, the THPSC published its Concept Paper on Transforming Texas Public Schools, which provides history and background on the transformation movement as well as an outline of the THPSC’s work in digital integration, high-priority learning standards, multiple assessments, and community-based accountability.

With the veto of House Bill 2824, the THPSC was forced to revisit its plan for carrying out the necessary research and data collection. In November 2013, the Consortium invited other Texas school districts engaged in school transformation to participate in the research efforts as Consortium Associates (see below).

In 2015, the 84th Texas Legislature’s House Bill 18 expanded the THPSC from 23 to 30 participating districts. Lawmakers also passed several bills in line with recommendations from the THPSC’s December 2014 report, one being the development of an assessment and accountability framework that is not over-reliant on high-stakes testing.

Moving in that direction, House Bill 2804 (2015) shifted some of the weight given to standardized tests in the public school accountability system to other indicators of student achievement. It also created the Texas Commission on Next Generation Assessments and Accountability (TCNGAA) to “develop and make recommendations for new systems of student assessment and public school accountability.” The bill required that an educator in a THPSC-participating school district be included and that the group consider the THPSC’s recommendations when it prepared its report.

In February 2016, THPSC representatives provided the TCNGAA with recommendations for changes to the state’s assessment and accountability systems. The commission issued its final report in August 2016. Among its recommendations was a study on alternative, district-based assessment and accountability systems to expand opportunities for innovation.

The THPSC delivered its third report to the Texas Legislature in December 2016. In it, the recommended the repeal of the A-F letter-grade school/district rating system in favor of “an assessment and accountability framework that is not over-reliant on high-stakes testing, that is well balanced and instructionally sensitive, with a defensible state testing program that emphasizes high-priority learning standards, has value for students, parents, and teachers, measures what each community holds important in promoting college and career readiness, and supports improved instruction and a process for local input.”