The State Board of Education (SBOE) voted last week to provide about $2.6 billion to the state’s coffers from funds generated by the Permanent School Fund as well as granted open-enrollment charters to seven non-profit groups.
The most debated item on the Board’s Friday agenda was a non-binding resolution which narrowly passed on a 7-6 vote with two members absent, which stated the board “will look to reject future prejudicial social studies submissions that continue to offend Texas law with respect to treatment of the world’s major religious groups by significant inequalities of coverage spacewise and/or by demonizing or lionizing one or more of them over others.”
The long-range plan for instructional materials had new instructional materials for K-12 scheduled to be adopted or given approval to be purchased with state funds in 2012, with the new books going into classrooms in 2013. However, that timeline will be delayed by at least two years because of the SBOE’s actions in May to cancel Proclamation 2012, the K-12 science call. That proclamation was cancelled due to the predicted budget deficit expected to occur over the next two years or more. As the current cost projects indicate that Texas will need approximately $850 million for new K-12 social studies materials, a realistic ‘best case’ scenario would have the SBOE call for new social studies materials as Proclamation 2015.
During the next biennium, the state is scheduled to purchase English language arts materials for grade 2-8. English I-IV, pre-kindergarten materials, English as a Second Language materials a cost of approximately $545 million. In addition to these Proclamation 2011 materials, the SBOE has issued a supplemental call for materials for four high school science courses, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Integrated Physics & Chemistry. These four courses are part of the required high school curriculum and will be covered on the end-of-course exams that are part of the state’s new State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR). To reduce the cost of the science material, the board voted Friday to purchase supplemental science materials that contain newly revised curriculum standards for these four courses only. This action removed planned purchases of supplemental science material for grades 5-8.
In an effort to improve the chances that the legislature will fund textbook purchases when it crafts the next state budget, the SBOE took actions that are anticipated to generate more than enough funds to cover the projected costs.
SBOE members agreed that the distribution rate from the Permanent School Fund to the Available School Fund would be an amount equal to 3.5 percent of the trailing 16 fiscal quarters preceding the regular session of the state legislature for the 2012-2013 biennium.
This action is expected to generate $1.566 billion for the state.
The SBOE, by law, must set a distribution rate every two years. However in taking this action, SBOE members noted that “the distribution is intended to satisfy our constitutional duty to set aside a sufficient amount of funds to provide free textbooks.”
Funds generated by the Available School Fund must be used to provide textbooks and per capita funding for each public school student. Although the SBOE, through its stewardship of the Permanent School Fund, generates enough money to pay for new textbooks, the Legislature must directly appropriate the money back to the Texas Education Agency in order for the textbooks to be purchased.
When the distribution rate was last set, the stock market was in decline and the fund generated only $60.7 million to be used to purchase books or make per capita payments. However, the Permanent School Fund has made a resounding rebound during the past year and the board agreed to provide a “catch-up payment” to the Legislature of $1.092 billion this year. When combined with the payment last year of $60.7 million, the fund will provide a total two-year payment of $1.15 billion.
The Permanent School Fund, an endowment created in 1854, now has a fair market value of $22.6 billion.