By Pitts H.B. No. 1952
75R4713 ESH-D
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
1-1 AN ACT
1-2 relating to funding for compensatory education programs in public
1-3 schools.
1-4 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-5 SECTION 1. Sections 42.152(a)-(c), Education Code, are
1-6 amended to read as follows:
1-7 (a) For each student who is academically [educationally]
1-8 disadvantaged or who is a student who does not have a disability
1-9 and resides in a residential placement facility in a district in
1-10 which the student's parent or legal guardian does not reside, a
1-11 district is entitled to an annual allotment equal to the adjusted
1-12 basic allotment multiplied by 0.2, and by 2.41 for each full-time
1-13 equivalent student who is in a remedial and support program under
1-14 Section 29.081 because the student is pregnant.
1-15 (b) For purposes of this section, "student who is
1-16 academically disadvantaged" means a student who did not perform
1-17 satisfactorily on:
1-18 (1) a readiness test or assessment instrument
1-19 administered at the beginning of the school year; or
1-20 (2) an assessment instrument administered under
1-21 Subchapter B, Chapter 39, during the preceding school year [the
1-22 number of educationally disadvantaged students is determined by
1-23 averaging the best six months' enrollment in the national school
1-24 lunch program of free or reduced-price lunches for the preceding
2-1 school year].
2-2 (c) Funds allocated under this section[, other than an
2-3 indirect cost allotment established under State Board of Education
2-4 rule, which may not exceed 15 percent,] must be used in providing
2-5 compensatory education and accelerated instruction programs under
2-6 Section 29.081 that [, and the district must account for the
2-7 expenditure of state funds by program and by campus under existing
2-8 agency reporting and auditing procedures. Funds allocated under
2-9 this section, other than the indirect cost allotment, shall only be
2-10 expended to] improve and enhance programs and services funded under
2-11 the regular education program. At least 80 percent of funds
2-12 allocated under this section must be used to provide remedial
2-13 instruction in reading at each school in which, during the
2-14 preceding school year, more than 50 percent of the students did not
2-15 perform satisfactorily on the assessment instrument in reading
2-16 administered in the third grade under Section 39.023(a). A
2-17 home-rule school district or an open-enrollment charter school must
2-18 use funds allocated under Subsection (a) to provide compensatory
2-19 services but is not otherwise subject to Subchapter C, Chapter 29.
2-20 A school district or an open-enrollment charter school that
2-21 receives funds allocated under Subsection (a) shall send to the
2-22 commissioner an annual report that:
2-23 (1) describes in detail how funds allocated under
2-24 Subsection (a) were spent;
2-25 (2) describes in detail the changes in student
2-26 performance attributable to compensatory education programs; and
2-27 (3) contains other information required by the
3-1 commissioner.
3-2 SECTION 2. This Act applies beginning with the 1997-1998
3-3 school year.
3-4 SECTION 3. The importance of this legislation and the
3-5 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
3-6 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
3-7 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
3-8 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
3-9 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
3-10 passage, and it is so enacted.