Texas Educator Board Weighs Giving Struggling Teacher-Training Programs an Extra Year

The board that licenses Texas teachers votes Sept. 18 on rules that would give a failing teacher-preparation program an extra year before the clock starts on losing its accreditation. Written comment closed Sept. 14, but the board still takes registered testimony at the meeting.

Texas grades its educator preparation programs on a weighted index built from exam pass rates, surveys of principals and new teachers, student test-score growth, and how often and how well candidates are observed teaching. Score 85 percent or better and a program is accredited; 80 or above but under 85 puts it on warning; below 80 puts it on probation. Three straight probation years and the state must revoke, barring the program from admitting new candidates for two years. Under the amendment, a first year below 80 would bring a warning instead, adding a year before the revocation count begins.

The same package makes that softer track more expensive. Any program landing on warning or probation would have to sit for a full continuing approval review and pay the $4,500 cost itself. The agency’s own estimate, modeled on the 2024-25 results, is four extra reviews a year. Of the 115 programs rated that year, 15 were on a lowered status. The board revoked Huston-Tillotson University’s program in April after three consecutive years on probation.

Thirty-seven disciplinary cases follow, all of them defaults. In 36, the educator did not answer the state’s petition within 30 days of being served, which the rules treat as admitting the well-pled allegations; in the last, the educator did not appear at a hearing. Staff recommends suspensions of about a year in most, revocation in five and permanent revocation in seven. None of the allegations has been tested at a hearing, and an educator may still contest a default in writing or ask to appear and show good cause. At the board’s last big default docket, in December, it decided 37 cases in one motion and pulled two out for separate votes.

Also on the agenda: two more rule items, a policy discussion of the reviews themselves, and a briefing on the educator misconduct dashboard the agency launched in June. If the board adopts the accountability rules, they go to the State Board of Education, which may reject them by a two-thirds vote of the members present and voting but cannot change a word — and if it does nothing for 90 days after receiving them, they take effect anyway.

Meeting at a glance

Board members

• Courtney Boswell MacDonald — chair; Kerrville; former education advocacy director.
• Julia Dvorak — vice chair; Liberty Hill; public relations consultant.
• Bena Glasscock — secretary; Adrian; child services coordinator, Hereford schools.
• Latisha D. Andrews — Houston; founder and superintendent, Beta Academy charter school.
• Cassidy Estes — Amarillo; fifth-grade language arts teacher, Amarillo schools.
• Rex Gore — Austin; company president and charter network board member.
• JoMeka Gray — Belton; elementary teacher, Temple schools.
• Michael D. McFarland — Crowley; superintendent, Crowley schools.
• Tara Turk-Zaafran — Houston; former vice principal and science teacher.
• Kathy Ward — Plano; former special education teacher and county commissioner.
• Bobbie Lynn Weir — Dallas; technical education teacher, Richardson High School.

Roster from the agency’s board member page, checked against the governor’s appointment releases; that page is out of date on the vice chair, whom the governor reappointed in November 2025 and whose city it still gives as Pflugerville rather than Liberty Hill. Four non-voting members also sit: a dean of education, a representative of alternative certification programs, and staff of the Texas Education Agency and the Higher Education Coordinating Board. The board carried two voting vacancies through most of 2025; appointments in February and July 2026 filled them. The agency has published no approved minutes for any 2026 meeting. Staff contact: Kameryn McCain, (512) 463-6469.