The State Board of Education (SBOE) voted today to increase the amount of funding it will provide for the state budget to $1.9 billion over the next biennium. This increased level of funding is possible because of the strong performance of Permanent School Fund and assistance from the General Land Office (GLO).
The GLO transfer will be $300 million larger than had been anticipated. This transfer will go to the Permanent School Fund. This allowed the State Board of Education to increase its payout from $1.58 billion to about $1.9 billion for the 2012-2013 biennium.
Money from the Permanent School Fund, which flows through the Available School Fund, is required to be spent on textbooks and educational programs.
David Bradley, chair of the board’s Committee on School Finance/Permanent School Fund, said board members, Patterson, and legislative leaders worked cooperatively to find the increased funding for schools. “This is a win-win-win situation,” he said.
All 15 SBOE members signed a letter to legislators today notifying them that the board had fulfilled its duty to provide funding for the public school system. They asked the legislature now do its duty and appropriate a portion of this money for the purchase of new English language arts textbooks and supplemental science materials. These instructional materials are expected to cost about $550 million over the next two years- $491 million for Proclamation 2010 and approximately another $60 million for supplemental science 5-8 and four high school science courses.
The instructional materials for English language arts courses in grades 2-5, middle school, and English I-IV are particularly important because of the changes in the state’s curriculum standards. Materials in use currently address the language arts standards that were replaced this year. The soon-to-be-implemented State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness or STAAR will measure students’ mastery of the new standards, particularly in writing, in elementary, middle and high school.
The new language arts programs approved by the State Board of Education today offer technology resources and options that are not available with the currently adopted materials. These technology resources better prepare students for 21st Century literacy. With students and teachers accountable for a higher standard of rigor and an expectation for more advanced technology resources, the funding decisions for these new materials for the 2011-12 school year is an important consideration for the 82nd Texas Legislature.