Taskforce recommendations to MALC and SHC

2014 TASKFORCE
RECOMMENDATIONS TO
MALC AND SHC

Goals and Objectives
 Familiarize local advocates with taskforce proposals
 Develop sense of priorities within each issue area
 Bring stories to light that may serve as strong
testimony or talking points for legislation
 Gauge support for taskforce proposals

State of Latina/o Education
• 52% of all public school students in Texas
• Latina/os comprise 90% of all ELL students in Texas
• Nearly 1 out of every 10 Latina/o students qualify
for special education services
• 78% of all Latina/o public education students are
low-income
• Of those Latina/os who took the SAT in 2012, only
59% passed

Task Force Positions
• School Finance
• Teacher Quality
• Access to Curriculum
• Parent & Community Engagement
• School & District Accountability
• High-stakes Testing & Student Assessment
• Preserving Public Education
• Access to Higher Education
• Funding, Capacity & Expansion of Higher Education
• College & University Campus Climate
• Student Retention & Completion in Higher Education

School Finance
• All children should have an equal right to resources like quality academic
instruction, extracurricular activities, and technology so they can succeed
academically and serve as productive members of society.
• Public schools should have adequate and actual cost-based funding to provide
transportation so as not to hinder participation by economically disadvantaged
students in summer school, extended day programs, after-school tutoring, etc.
• Students in property-wealthy districts should not continue to access substantially
greater resources at lower tax effort than students in property-poor districts.
• In using dollars from the expected state surplus, the Legislature must prioritize
investment in public school funding, rather than make education-related
appropriations on a “funds-left-over” basis.
• Texas must stop privatization experiment efforts such as corporate charter
schools, Home Rule charter districts, vouchers, and full-time virtual schooling that
divert public education funds from publicly accountable, neighborhood public
schools.

Teacher Quality
• Teaching quality means that teachers are prepared, supported and trusted to assess
student performance in their classrooms.
• Quality instruction for Latina/o and emergent bilingual students begins with
supervised programs based on proven instructional methodologies.
• All Texas students should have access to culturally and linguistically competent
teachers and administrators.
• Quality teaching for Latina/o students is more than mere cultural recognition; it
involves pedagogy, or the ability to connect content objectives to the “funds of
knowledge” and experiences of multicultural students to enhance learning.
• Quality teaching necessitates less focus on "teaching to a test.”
• Teacher preparation programs need to be revised so that they are interdisciplinary
and engage teacher candidates with the cultural and linguistic resources to meet
the needs of multicultural communities.
• There must be an equitable distribution of high-quality teaching across and within
schools. The state should create reassignment incentives and provide additional
professional support to help with that distribution.

Access to Curriculum
• Texas public schools should provide all students with access to college-ready
curriculum.
• The State must direct TEA and THECB to work together to ensure alignment
between high school graduation requirements and college admissions
requirements.
• Trade and technical programs within the K-12 context should be optional and
viewed as supplemental in nature, not as a replacement for curriculum that
provides all students a fair opportunity to attend college.
• The state should increase equity in the availability of high-school endorsement
and dual-credit course options across public high schools.
• All students should be exposed to curriculum and texts that acknowledge the
contributions of historically underrepresented communities.

Parent & Community Engagement
• Students, parents and communities need to have more input on how education
they receive impacts them and reverse their limited involvement in school and
district infrastructures.
• The diversity of actors—i.e., teachers, administrators, boards and committee
members— in Texas' educational system should better reflect the demographics
of the state.
• For many Latina/o parents, the structure of the traditional Parent Teacher
Associations is not always sufficient to meaningful engage parents who have been
previously excluded or underserved by that model.

School & District Accountability
• The State must increase equity in the availability of high-school endorsement
and dual-credit course options across public high schools.
• The State must monitor the quality of applied and locally-developed courses to
ensure students' eligibility to Texas and out-of-state colleges and universities.
• The State must lead with an accountability system that places a greater focus on
the resources and the “holding power” of schools (IDRA, Quality Schools Action
Framework).

High-stakes Testing &
Student Assessment
• High-stakes testing obstructs students’ access to quality learning time and
diverts precious dollars and resources (e.g., teacher and staff time) to testing
companies.
• The misuses of state-mandated testing are both unethical and unsupported by
research, and disproportionately impact poor, minority, and ELL students, as well
as those students receiving special education services.
• Focusing on student test performance does not lead to a deeper understanding
of the curriculum.
• In a student assessment system that moves away from a sole reliance on high-stakes
testing, high school graduation standards would consist of the following
requirements for receiving a Texas high school diploma:
– Course grades and overall GPA;
– Student evaluations by teachers;
– Student portfolios;
– School attendance; and
– Students’ contributions to their school and community.

Preserving Public Education
• Corporate charter schools should be subject to the same accountability
standards as traditional public schools.
• The State should revisit its Home Rule policies that allow school boards to
convert an entire district to a charter school format, thereby exempting
them from state provisions such as teacher contract requirements and student
discipline regulations.
• Full-time virtual schools, which generally have high teacher-student ratios, result
in poor student performance.

Access to Higher Education
• College should be a realistic option for all Texans, regardless of race, geography or socio-economic
background.
• Protecting access to Texas public universities requires institutions to consider race as a limited
factor in admission decisions and to preserve the TTPP.
• College affordability problems are not solved by cut-rate schemes such as “$10,000 diploma
challenges” that raise quality and marketplace credibility concerns for students and whose
costs may outweigh its benefits for institutions of higher education themselves.
• Tuition deregulation has erected barriers to access to higher education for Latinas/os.
• All qualified students must have an equal opportunity to attend Texas’ flagship universities.
• The State must ensure that institutions of higher education adjust their entrance requirements
to better align with the new high school graduation plans and coursework.
• Dual credit programs between high schools and colleges are vital and contribute significantly to
student success in college.

Funding, Capacity & Expansion of
Higher Education
• More funding is needed for two- and four-year public college and university
programs focused on student retention.
• Texas must address the lack of doctoral programs and law and medical schools in
border cities.
• The State should expand the funding and resource capacity of Hispanic Serving
Institutions.
• Funding support for Mexican American Studies Centers, Programs, and
Departments must be a priority.

College & University
Campus Climate
• College and university governing bodies, administrators, staff, and tenure-track
professor positions should better reflect the current demographics of the state.
• The Legislature should take a more proactive role in improving student diversity,
particularly in predominantly Anglo, four-year institutions of higher education.
• Texas should demand greater transparency and improved enforcement of college
and university campus assaults and discrimination policies.

Student Retention &Completion in
Higher Education
• Financial incentives and loan forgiveness options should be available for students
who obtain bilingual- and ESL-certified teaching degrees and pledge to work in
schools with acute shortages.
• The growing use of standardized testing to filter students out of certain degree
programs is problematic for Latina/o college students.
• Academic and social supports for Latina/o students must be priorities, particularly
at predominately White institutions.
• Higher education institutions must leverage any and all state and federal funding
(e.g., TRIO) and work-study opportunities.

¡Gracias!
For more information please contact:
Patricia D. López, Ph.D., Task Force Co-Chair
pdlopez@austin.utexas.edu
(512) 565-1722
Celina Moreno, Task Force Co-Chair
cmoreno@maldef.org
(617) 388-3551

Resources
• Full Education Recommendation and
Background
http://issuu.com/txlatinoedpolicy/docs/shc_
malc_edu_task_force_agenda_fina/0
• Additional reading material text here
www.idra.org

Hispanics have particularly high uninsured rates.
Insurance Coverage of Hispanics in the United States and Texas, 2011:
Data may not total 100% due to rounding.
SOURCE: KCMU/ Urban Institute analysis of 2012 ASEC Supplement to the CPS.

Hispanics in Texas have particularly high stakes
in the Medicaid expansion decision.
Nonelderly Uninsured <138% FPL by Race/Ethnicity
United States Texas
Total = 25.4 Million Total = 3.1 Million
NOTE: Totals may not sum to 100% due to rounding.
SOURCE: KCMU/Urban Institute analysis of 2011 American Community Survey

The Texas Medicaid expansion decision has
important impacts for the overall uninsured and
Hispanics nationally.
Distribution of Total Uninsured <138% FPL Distribution of Uninsured Hispanics ≤138% FPL
Other
States
49%
CA
15%
TX
12%
FL
9%
GA
NY5%
IL 4%
4%
NC
4%
Total : 25.4 Million
Other
States
43%
NOTE: Totals may not sum to 100% due to rounding.
SOURCE: KCMU/Urban Institute analysis of 2011 American Community Survey
CA
26%
TX
22%
FL
9%
Total: 8.9 Million

Medicaid expansion/Close the Coverage Gap:
• Participants acknowledged that reaching a “Texas Solution to the Coverage Gap” is both
essential and politically challenging.
• Follow the example of the red states and Republican governors who have already found ways
to negotiate solutions with federal Medicaid officials to make this work in their states.
– ensuring coverage is equally available statewide in Texas;
– supporting health coverage and health homes for all family members;
– offering comprehensive benefits that are at least as good as commercial and small
business standards;
– including personal responsibility provisions such as:
• affordable cost-sharing (e.g., co-payments, premiums for adults above the poverty
line) that is not punitive to family members with serious or chronic illness; and
• incentives for wellness behaviors that are evidence-based and not punitive to
persons who are ill;
– including reasonable policies to ensure ongoing access to community safety net providers;
– and pursuing good faith negotiations (i.e., free from “poison pills”) with federal Medicaid
authorities.
– Do not rule out a key role for considering the input, leadership, needs, and voices of Texas
communities, local and county officials, and safety net health care providers.

Latinas and Access to Health Care
• In the US between 2000 and 2008, the number of women in need of family
planning services who were Hispanic increased by 27%, and the number who
were black increased by 11.5%, while the number who were white decreased by
less than 1%.
• About three-quarters of poor women, women who are uninsured, African
American and Latina women and those who were born outside the United States
who obtain care from a family planning center consider the center to be their
usual source of medical care.
• While Latinos represent 16.7 percent of the population nationwide, nearly 40
percent of Texans are Latino.
• In Texas, 46% of Hispanic women are uninsured compared to 17.5% of White
women.
Guttmacher, May 2012

Latinas and Access to Health Care
Latinos face greater obstacles to obtaining, and benefiting from, sexual and reproductive health
services than non-Latino white Americans. As a result, Latinos experience higher rates of
reproductive cancers, unintended pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections than most
other groups of people in the U.S. For example:
REPRODUCTIVE CANCERS
• Latinas are more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer than women of any other racial
or ethnic group — one and a half times as likely as non-Latina white women (ACS, 2012).
• Latinas have the third highest death rates from cervical cancer (ACS, 2012).
SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED INFECTIONS
• Latinos contract HIV at nearly three times the rate of non-Latino whites (CDC, 2012a).
• The rate of gonorrhea for Latinos is double that of non-Latino whites (CDC, 2012b).
• The rate of chlamydia among Latinos is more than twice as high as it is for non-Latino whites
(CDC, 2012b).
Approximately 20 percent of Latinas have not visited a physician in the last year, and one-third
of Latinas do not have a regular health care provider (KFF, 2011b).

Women’s Healthcare
• Continue progress toward restoring and increasing access to women’s health care.
• Recommend Texas HHSC and DSHS be directed to take a leadership role in identifying and filling
gaps in access to low-income women’s health care across the state. The state’s goal should be
to ensure all populations in need have access.
• The agencies should compile information that identifies resources and gaps across the
state, including:
• Areas which have had facility closures (i.e., the 76 clinics which U.T. Researchers
report have closed to date), as well as those with reduced hours and/or reduced
services, and distinguishing those from areas where there have never been local
providers.
• Service capacity that is supported with federal and/or private funds that are not
state-appropriated resources.
• Participants agree that coordination and oversight by the state agencies is desirable, but a
simple merger of all Women’s Health and Family Planning programs is not desirable, as
it would result in loss of access to care to some populations under current state law
restrictions.
• Establish an “Opt-Out” policy to auto-enroll women who have had a Medicaid-paid birth into
the Texas Women’s Health Program after delivery.
• Women who chose not to participate could simply decline, but research has shown that
opt-out policies are effective at promoting participation.

Establish services of certified Promotoras/es
as a Texas Medicaid service benefit
• Currently, services may only be funded as an administrative activity of the Medicaid
Managed Care health plans, which limits their use (by limiting the extent HMOs can
use their services, and drawing a lower federal Medicaid match).
• Promotoras/es could fill critical gaps for Texas families related to Texas Medicaid,
such as:
– connecting new mothers with screening for postpartum depression,
– encouraging good pre-conception health care for those planning families,
– connecting families with prenatal care and parenting classes, and
– helping all Medicaid Managed Care enrollees (maternity, children, individuals
with disabilities, and seniors,) and their parents, family members and
caretakers, to navigate the system, learn self-advocacy skills, and overcome
barriers to care.

Health & Fitness
To promote the best possible health of children, Texans Care for Children and other
advocates propose:
 Limit the marketing of unhealthy foods in schools, and the availability of
unhealthy foods and beverages on school campuses
 Promote community opportunities for physical activity (for all ages and family
members)
 Increase access to affordable, healthy foods through school based initiatives,
community gardens and support of farmers’ markets
 Support measures, like a soda tax, that reduce public health spending while
increasing public health revenue.

Children’s Medicaid and CHIP
• The Texas Legislature has not adopted legislation to correct conflicts
between Texas Medicaid-CHIP laws and federal law changes under the
ACA. Two factors affect Texas children can be remedied in the 2015
session:
– Ensure that Texas children can continue to qualify for segments of 6-month
continuous coverage as they have since January 2002 per SB 43 of the 2001
session. Current HHSC policy would limit children to only one 6 month CE
segment out of each 12-month period.
– Eliminate the current exclusion of children from Texas CHIP unless they have
been uninsured for at least 3 months. Children should not have to go without
coverage and parents should not face tax penalties for leaving their children
without coverage for 3 months.

Medicaid Managed Care Consumer Assistance
and Ombudsman
Create a network of local/regional assisters (e.g., located at AAAs and ADRCs), plus
enhance capacity at HHSC Ombudsman, to really serve all Medicaid Managed Care
enrollees who need assistance accessing care and navigating systems.
Raise network adequacy standards for Medicaid Managed Care (i.e., local access within
a reasonable timeframe).
• Complaints from Medicaid Managed Care families in Rio Grande Valley and El Paso
have included children with serious conditions including cancer having treatment
disrupted because of parents receiving inaccurate information about hospital
participation in Medicaid Managed Care health plans.
• Texas Medicaid Managed Care health plans have mixed track records: some preform
better than others in outcomes and patient and provider satisfaction. Texas
Medicaid should work aggressively to require best practices in its contracts.
• Federal Medicaid officials have indicated that Texas should look to incorporating best
practices statewide in Medicaid Managed Care

Increased capacity in training, loan repayment
programs, and residency placements of across
the spectrum primary care and behavioral health
professionals
• Invest in growing the Texas primary care workforce through increased funding
for loan repayment programs.
• Research and pursue the proven and promising approaches to effectively target
reducing provider shortages and encouraging providers locating practices in
border and rural Texas.

Increased Outreach and Application Assistance
Capacity for all Texans
 Marketing, outreach, and application assistance are needed by Texans for
access to both private commercial insurance and Medicaid-CHIP. HHSC
and TDI budgets should include support for statewide networks of
culturally competent application assistance and health care navigation
across the full spectrum of public and private insurance programs.
o Holding hearings to identify and explore the unmet needs for educating and
assisting Texas consumers, as revealed in the 2014 Marketplace open
enrollment period, could provide the basis for future legislation.
o This legislative inquiry could help define the need and expanded role for TDI,
HHSC, and DSHS in supporting statewide networks of outreach and
application assistance.

Resources
A Diverse network of Texans and Texas organizations will keep
working to find health care for the Texans in the “Gap Group,” to tell
their stories, and to seek inclusion of Texas’ working poor in the ACA’s
health reform.
www.cppp.org
You can link to all the websites below from our CPPP website:
www.covertexasnow.org;
www.TexasLeftMeOut.org
www.texaswellandhealthy.org

Expand Immigrants’ Rights
Allow eligible undocumented immigrants to apply for a Texas driver’s license.
Lawmakers should ensure that an applicant’s information will not be turned over to
immigration officials, unless the applicant is under criminal investigation.
– Rationale: Increases public safety by reducing the number of unlicensed,
uninsured drivers in Texas.
– Note: Survey results indicate that a driver’s license bill is the Task Force’s
top priority for proactive legislation in 2015.
Prohibit peace officers from asking for the nationality or immigration status of a
victim of or witness to a crime, unless it is necessary to investigate the crime or
gather information in furtherance of an application for a visa designed to protect
victims assisting law enforcement.
– Rationale: Keeps communities safe by changing current practices that
discourage immigrant families from reporting crimes to the police.

Oppose Militarization of the Border
• Creation of an oversight mechanism to make the Texas Department of Public Safety
more transparent and hold it accountable, particularly on issues related to
checkpoints and border security contracts.
• Study of compliance issues around a state mandate to take DNA samples of the
unidentified remains of migrants who have perished attempting to cross the border.
• Drafting of resolution(s) encouraging the passage of federal comprehensive
immigration reform, the end to the Secure Communities Program, the end to
immigrant detention quotas, etc.

Oppose Bills That Restrict
Immigrants’ Rights
• Oppose any proposed ban on so-called sanctuary cities, which would allow police
to inquire about a person’s immigration status.
• Support In-state tuition: Ensure Texas continues to grant certain immigrant
students, including undocumented students, access to state financial aid and in-state
tuition rates at Texas public institutions of higher education.
• Oppose E-Verify: Fight bills seeking to require Texas business or agencies to use E-Verify,
a voluntary employment verification program that often incorrectly
identifies authorized workers as undocumented.
• Oppose “S-Comm” Expansion: Combat efforts to expand the federal “Secure
Communities” Program (for example, requiring local jails to participate in the
program), which has led to the deportation of many immigrants who committed
only minor infractions or had no criminal record at all.

Civic Engagement
Registration
• Provide online voter registration
• Modify or drop deputization requirements
– require Election offices to provide more training.
• Provide electronic voter registration at government agencies
• Move voter registration deadline to last day of early voting or alternatively to 10
days prior to Election Day.
• Take more pro-active action to register eligible high school students including
– mandates to the Secretary of State to partner with schools
– Automatic registration process

Voting Procedures
• Abolish or Reduce the burdens of the Restrictive Photo ID law
– allow for more identifications to be included including student IDs.
– Provide easier and cheaper access to underlying documents necessary for photo
ID
– Allow other governmental agencies the ability to provide Photo IDs, including
school districts
• Expand early voting to include two weekends and open all day on Saturdays and
Sundays
• Do more to include the importance of voting in the school curriculum
• Examine the possibility of uniform Election dates for local elections

Asset Building
Housing:
 Establish a dedicated revenue source to fund the Affordable Housing
Trust Fund.

Capital and Capacity-Building for
Small Businesses
• Fund the Texas Capital Access Program
• Access to Banking
• Redirect Business Subsidies to Small Businesses
o Latino-owned businesses in Texas are overwhelmingly small
businesses.The Legislature should look to generally redirect any
business subsidies so that they go to help the in-state, small
businesses who are crucial to Latino employment and wealth building.

College Savings
• Amend SNAP and TANF asset limits to allow children to save for college
• Require for-profit colleges to provide students with information from the
TWC Directory of Licensed Career Schools & Colleges to students prior to
enrollment and expand the directory to include the average student loan
burden at the end of the program and student loan default rates.

Asset Protection
Predatory Lending:
 Rein in abusive payday and auto title lending practices.
 Add to protections against abusive property tax lending practices; require
counties to offer affordable payment plans to homeowners as an
alternative.

Protecting Investments
• Simplify probate process for low-income families, particularly related to
the transfer of home ownership.
• Adopt model laws to ensure basic quality standards for for-profit tax
preparers.

Modify or Repeal Driver
Responsibility Program
 The Texas Driver Responsibility Program,, has caused the licenses of more
than 1.3 million Texas drivers to be suspended. The Program creates fees
for those with moving violations that are unaffordable for working-class
Texans and have been shown to have no effect on reducing DUIs or other
driving offenses.
 The Program is driving millions of Texas families into economic crisis and
endangering their employment.

Workforce Issues
• Raise the minimum wage
• Strengthen laws against wage theft;
• Improve workers compensation, especially for those most vulnerable in the
construction industry;
• Increase options for affordable childcare;
• Support initiatives to reduce barriers to employment for those with criminal history;
– “Ban the Box” to Remove Unnecessary Discrimination Against Ex-Offenders
• Connect education to the needs of the workplace through apprenticeship and
training
• Provide more training opportunities for persons who get laid off or who lose their
jobs due to companies closing.

Questions
• Please rank your top 3 recommendations/proposals
• Are there any topics you feel that are missing from the recommendations?
• Which of the proposals will impact your family and community the most?
• Please share a personal story that highlights the need to adopt one of the
proposals or recommendations?
• Would you be willing to support all the proposals by making calls, testifying or
submitting letters?

Taskforce recommendations to MALC and SHC

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