Higher Standards for Teaching and Learning
Strengthen the state curriculum standards, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), establish explicit, objective, and measurable benchmarks for academic proficiency K-12, and identify the reforms necessary for moving students enrolled in public schools from the current level of performance to a level of proficiency that is competitive both nationally and internationally.

New, Better Assessments
Strengthen the state’s criterion-referenced assessments and supplement them with norm-referenced tests, add end-of-course exams for core high school courses, correlate exit assessments with post-secondary readiness expectations, and use results of value-added student assessments for teacher appraisals, teacher preparation, accreditation of teacher preparation programs, and the school accountability system, particularly for evaluating the performance of charter and alternative schools.

Higher Standards for Academic and Financial Accountability
Significantly increase the state standards for school district and campus performance, eliminate the Alternative Accountability System and use results of value-added assessments for rating all schools, hold schools accountable for workplace/college readiness, as determined by the ACT and SAT, and accelerate serious consequences for underperforming districts and campuses.  Develop and implement a financial accountability rating system that distinguishes among districts’ financial performance, brings additional transparency to education finance, and establishes productivity standards down to the campus level.

Attack the Reading Crisis
Improve the system of accrediting, preparing, certifying, and evaluating K-8 teachers by assessing all according to the value they add to student reading proficiency; change state policies to give teachers responsibility for classroom instruction by replacing learner-centered instruction with teacher-centered instruction; establish credentials for a K-8 Reading Specialist; create a new, improved K-8 Texas Reading Initiative with revised rigorous standards for reading and reading assessments.

Increase Educator Effectiveness
Expand alternative educator preparation and certification; expand new teacher mentoring; aggressively recruit non-traditional leadership for school administration; enhance professional development; create new career paths for teachers; adopt the Koret Texas Task Force recommendation for professional contracts for educators; introduce performance-based compensation for all educators based on value-added evaluation; and establish policies for mandatory remediation for ineffective educators leading to dismissal.

Accelerate Deregulation and Innovation
Encourage districts to develop new, better ways of serving students, particularly for high school students, and allow wide-ranging authority at the district level for deregulation of human resource management as well as innovations in scheduling and delivery; establish new, rigorous standards for charter schools, with expanded authority for charters and equalized funding, and base continued accreditation on results of value-added assessments; adopt district and statewide public school choice; award scholarships to students with special education needs; provide district-funded transfers to students in failing schools; and establish a virtual/electronic high school program for all students in Texas public schools.