The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (Coordinating Board) adopts amendments to §4.28 and §4.30 concerning the Texas core curriculum without changes to the proposed text as published in the November 9, 2007, issue of the Texas Register (32 TexReg 8078). Two changes were proposed. First, Coordinating Board staff has received a number of questions during the past year regarding appropriate courses to fulfill the Mathematics Component Area requirement. The change specifies that the first college-level mathematics course, including but not limited to introductory statistics, logic, college algebra, or any more advanced math course for which the student is qualified to take upon enrollment, should be allowed to fulfill the component area requirement. Second, the Coordinating Board is charged to specify a reporting period for the submission of institutional reports regarding the effectiveness of the core curriculum at the institution. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) has recently increased its interest in and attention to this portion of the undergraduate curriculum as part of its revisions to the accreditation reaffirmation process and requires essentially the same information that has been required in these institutional reports to the Coordinating Board. The Coordinating Board's reporting period should be changed so that it can be aligned with that of SACS in order to eliminate unnecessary duplication of reporting requirements.

No comments were received regarding this amendment.

The amendments are adopted under Texas Education Code, §61.827, which authorizes the Coordinating Board to adopt rules to implement the provisions of the subchapter, including those in Texas Education Code, §61.822(a), requiring the Coordinating Board to adopt a statement of the content, component areas, and objectives of the core curriculum Texas Education Code, §61.824, regarding the evaluation of the institution's core curriculum and reporting of the evaluations to the Coordinating Board.