Last week, the House Public Education Committee discussed several bills that would significantly impact instructional materials and library operations at the local district level. This week, the Senate Education Committee takes up similar bills on Wednesday, March 29. Listed below are several bills that curriculum leaders will want to be aware of. We will continue to monitor and provide updates for these and other bills impacting libraries and instructional materials. Click here to see the agenda for Wednesday’s Senate Education Committee meeting and watch the livestream at this link.
HB 1605, authored by House Public Education Chairman Brad Buckley, and SB 2565 authored by Sen. Angela Paxton have similar provisions. They would change the current State Board of Education adoption cycle to give the appointed Commissioner of Education and the Texas Education Agency authority to recommend instructional materials for review based on TEKS coverage and quality, using a rubric developed by TEA and approved by the State Board of Education. The bills would authorize the Commissioner and TEA to create a portal to provide open-source educational resources that cover all TEKS for at least grades K-8 reading and math, and K-5 foundation subjects, procured or developed by TEA. The cost of the portal and associated training would be funded by a carve-out from the Instructional Materials and Technology Allotment. Districts would not be required to use the open-source materials or the State Board of Education approved instructional materials, but they would receive an additional allotment of $40 per student if they did so. Teachers would be exempted from disciplinary proceedings related to the content of instructional materials if they were using state approved materials. READ MORE