This Thursday is the last board meeting before the hostile takeover of Houston ISD by the unelected and unaccountable board of managers. 

If you are wondering why the BOM have not been announced yet, it is probably so they can meet in secret this month to get their marching orders from Morath. Once the board of managers are announced, no more than four can meet at a time without violating the open meetings act. 

Also please save these two dates:

• CVPE Zoom meeting this Saturday, May 13th @ noon to discuss Governor Abbott's attack on public schools. We will also watch a clip from "A Perfect Storm: The Takeover of New Orleans Public Schools" and discuss how these two power grabs are similar and lessons we can learn.
• Save June 1st at 4:30 pm for a protest at Hattie Mae White, 4400 W 18th. On June 1st, the board of managers will seize power from the citizens and take control of our school district and our children like they did in New Orleans and in other cities so unsuccessfully. 

To speak this Thursday in favor of democracy or concerns about worsening inequalities once the takeover occurs, sign up to speak by Wednesday at noon. 

Here are the instructions for the new more challenging system to register to speak. It requires you to make an account. The agenda packet is here. Sign up to speak-

• about the budget (agenda item 4) and the impact of taxation without representation on our democracy 
• about yet another round of practice tests to focus even more on STAAR (agenda item 6). 
• about agenda item 5 in which Senate Bill (SB) 9 requires local boards to adopt a policy establishing a process for adoption of curriculum materials for instruction on child abuse, family violence, dating violence, and sex trafficking.or at the hearing of the community. The anti-LGBTQ folks will probably show up to quote books out of context on this one.
• Hearing of the community about anything on your mind

Agenda item 6 concerns new progress monitoring goals to align with yet another set of practice tests. HISD will be adopting the I Ready assessments for the beginning of the year, middle of the year, and end of the year assessments. I Ready is the TEA-sponsored software package and with it, we get more narrowed curriculum, more expenses for practice tests, and, ultimately less funding for teachers and less funding to reduce class size. 

According to p 34 of the agenda packet, I-Ready “allows for growth to be measured.” We should be wary of language like this, especially when it comes with no further explanation and so-called growth measures have been used against children and teachers in the past.

Do you remember the teacher evaluation value-added models (VAM) used to evaluate teachers until the federal courts ruled that their use was illegal?  "As statistical models go, VAM is a sound system for what it was originally designed for: agriculture. So, if you are interested in increasing plant growth or seek to optimize levels of dairy production, get yourself a VAM. As a measure of teacher effectiveness in the classroom however, VAMs have been troubled from the start.”

RSVP to the CVPE meeting this Saturday at houstoncvpe.org/events. It is followed by a Civil Rights Town Hall at 1 pm.