LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD
Austin, Texas
FISCAL NOTE, 77th Regular Session
May 11, 2001
TO: Honorable Teel Bivins, Chair, Senate Committee on
Education
FROM: John Keel, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE: HB1144 by Grusendorf (Relating to public school
accountability and to measures to improve proficiency in
certain subjects.), Committee Report 2nd House,
Substituted
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* Estimated Two-year Net Impact to General Revenue Related Funds for *
* HB1144, Committee Report 2nd House, Substituted: negative impact *
* of $(41,619,239) through the biennium ending August 31, 2003. *
* *
* The bill would make no appropriation but could provide the legal *
* basis for an appropriation of funds to implement the provisions of *
* the bill. *
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General Revenue-Related Funds, Five-Year Impact:
****************************************************
* Fiscal Year Probable Net Positive/(Negative) *
* Impact to General Revenue Related *
* Funds *
* 2002 $(18,565,651) *
* 2003 (23,053,588) *
* 2004 (19,003,055) *
* 2005 (24,058,744) *
* 2006 (31,513,744) *
****************************************************
All Funds, Five-Year Impact:
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*Fiscal Probable Probable Change in Number of *
* Year Savings/(Cost) from Savings/(Cost) from State Employees from *
* General Revenue Fund Certification and FY 2001 *
* 0001 Assessment Fees *
* (General Revenue *
* Fund) *
* 0751 *
* 2002 $(18,565,651) $0 21.0 *
* 2003 (23,053,588) 0 21.0 *
* 2004 (19,080,950) 77,895 17.0 *
* 2005 (24,146,746) 88,002 19.0 *
* 2006 (31,601,746) 88,002 19.0 *
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Technology Impact
Section 1 of the bill would require coordination of databases between the
Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the Higher Education Coordinating Board
(THECB), which would likely necessitate contract efforts to match
student-level data.
Fiscal Analysis
The bill has a number of requirements. Those with fiscal implications
are noted in the methodology section:
Section 1 would require the development of a coordinated student-level
database for student performance information across primary, secondary
and post-secondary school.
Section 2: The State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) would be
required to establish a master mathematics teacher certificate and
develop a related course of study.
Section 3: The Texas Education Agency (TEA) would be required to
establish the master mathematics teacher grant program, providing $5,000
stipends to qualified teachers, starting in the 2003-04 school year.
Section 4: TEA would be required to develop professional development
institutes for mathematics teachers and to develop training materials.
Section 5: TEA would be required to award grants for the conduction of
research on mathematics skills acquisition and program effectiveness.
Section 5 also would require TEA to develop and make available,
preferably via the Internet, a service that assists teachers in providing
and grading mathematics homework assignments.
Section 6: TEA would be required to develop and make available to school
districts assessment instruments that can be used to diagnose student
mathematics skills.
Section 7 would authorize districts to provide optional intensive after
school or summer programs to provide mathematics instruction to students
who are not performing at grade level or are not performing successfully.
Section 8: TEA would be required to adopt or develop appropriate
criterion-referenced assessment instruments designed to assess the
ability of and be administered to students who are determined to have
dyslexia or a related disorder. Section 8 would also permit but not
require the commissioner of education to participate in multi-state
end-of-course test development, and requires the development of an
end-of-course test for Algebra I.
Section 9 would provide a definition of dropout rates under the Academic
Excellence Indicators System (AEIS) to include dropout and completion
rates for grades 9-12.
Section 10 would require school district annual performance reports to
include information received from post-secondary institutions concerning
student performance in the first year following graduation.
Section 11 would require the board of trustees of each school district to
have the district's dropout record audited annually beginning in the
2001-2002 school year. TEA would be required to review the audits. Not
later than February 1, 2002, TEA also be required to develop a training
program for auditing dropout records and make the training program
readily available to public accountants and CPAs throughout the state.
Section 12 would direct the development of a voluntary rating system,
although the existence of the system is mandatory.
Section 13 would authorize the Commissioner of education to appoint a
board of managers composed of residents to function as the board of
trustees in a district that has had a master or management team for one
year or longer.
Section 14 would require TEA's biennial report to include a statement of
the completion rates of students for grades 9-12.
Methodology
This estimate is based upon information provided by TEA and SBEC.
Section 2: The master mathematics teacher certification exam is estimated
to have a contracted cost $363,000 and require one additional employee
with salary costs of $115,589 over a two-year period to oversee the
development of the exam and the course of instruction. The number of
teachers earning certificates for the 2004 grant cycle is assumed to be
435, which is based on the actual number of teachers earning master
reading teacher certificates in 2001. The number of new teachers earning
certificates for each year thereafter is assumed to increase by 491 for
each year thereafter, until 2008 when the cumulative number of teachers
eligible for a master mathematics teacher grant stabilizes at the TEA's
estimate of 2,400.
Section 3: The estimated cost of the master mathematics teacher grant
program is based on $5,000 stipends for 435 teachers (actual master
reading teacher total) for a total of $2,175,000 in fiscal year 2004. It
is assumed that grant-receiving teachers will remain eligible for the
stipend in future years. It is assumed that an additional 491 teachers
will be certified to receive the stipend in fiscal year 2005 and each
fiscal year thereafter, increasing the grant cost by $2,455,000 per year.
It is assumed that the total number of certified teachers will
stabilize at 2,400 in fiscal year 2008.
Section 4: The professional development institutes are estimated to serve
about 28,741 teachers of mathematics. It is assumed that half the
teachers (14,370) would be trained in each of 2002 and 2003 at a cost of
$600 each for stipends, and that each of the 360 training sessions would
cost $10,000 to provide. Initial course material and development costs
are estimated at $1,500,000, for a total cost of $13,735,275 for each of
the first two years. These costs would decrease to $5,000,000 in 2004,
and $3,000,000 in 2005 and 2006.
Section 5: It is estimated that activities already budgeted in the
provision of professional development institutes would satisfy the
requirement to award grants to institutions for the development and
identification of research on mathematics skill acquisition; thus there
would be no cost. The grant awards for monitoring the effectiveness of
the institutes are estimated to cost $500,000 in 2003 and 2004. The
grant awards for identifying best practices in math instruction are
estimated to cost $175,000 in 2002 and 2003. The grant awards for
developing research on cognitive development concerning math skills are
estimated to cost $300,000 in 2002 and $100,000 in 2003.
Section 5 also would require TEA to develop and make available,
preferably via the Internet, a service that assists teachers in providing
and grading mathematics homework assignments. It is assumed that
development costs during fiscal years 2002 and 2003 would total
approximately $2,000,000.
Section 6: The cost of diagnostic instruments is an estimated contracted
cost of $150,000 per grade per year, for an annual total of $1,800,000,
and three additional FTE's for a two-year development period. These
costs and the additional personnel would not be needed after fiscal year
2003.
Section 7: The bill would require the state to fund optional district
after-school or summer intensive mathematics instruction programs. It is
assumed that TEA would need .5 FTE to administer the grant application
process. It is anticipated that this program will have a build-up of
funding over four years as the diagnostic tools and training programs
focus attention on mathematics performance. The grant funding would be
assumed to increase from $5,000,000 in 2003 to $20 million in 2006. The
funding at $20,000,000 would be sufficient to provide services to about
30,000 students for a thirty-day time period.
Section 8: The provisions that would allow the commissioner of education
to participate in multi-state end-of-course test development, and
require an end-of-course Algebra I exam have no fiscal implications.
Section 8 also would require the development of assessment instruments
for students with dyslexia and related disorders. Because of the
requirement for appropriate criterion-referenced assessment instruments,
tests would need to be developed to assess the Texas Essential Knowledge
and Skills statewide curriculum. The language requires tests in
mathematics at grades 3 through 11, reading at grades 3 through 10,
writing at grades 4 and 7, English language arts at grade 10, social
studies at grades 8 and 10, and science at grades 5 and 10.
Considering current contract costs for development and administration of
the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) and the State-Developed
Alternative Assessment (SDAA) for exempted special education students, a
new assessment system for dyslexic students is estimated to cost the
following contract amounts: FY02 $5 million; FY03 $5 million; FY04
$10 million; FY05 $10 million; FY06 $8 million. These figures are
based on English-version tests only and multiple administrations of the
certain tests required under TEC 28.0211 for the elimination of social
promotion. The language does not require annual public release of these
new tests; however, annual release is included in the estimates since all
other tests will be released. If the tests for dyslexic students do not
need to be released, the cost estimate could be reduced. Additionally,
the estimate may be affected once it can be determined how many dyslexic
students would be administered the new tests.
In addition to the contract amounts above, costs for full-time equivalent
employees or contracted personnel for the Student Assessment and Special
Education divisions would be required. It is estimated that an
additional 10 FTE's would be needed: 3 Manager IVs/B16; 1 Systems
Analyst V/B16; 1 Systems Analyst IV/B14; 3 Program Administrator IVs/B12;
and 2 Planner Is/B9. Associated administrative and travel budget for
these positions would also be required. These positions would be
required beginning in FY02 to begin the lengthy test development process.
Because the provision is added to Texas Education Code 39.023, it is
expected that the cost of these assessments can be funded from the
Foundation School Program compensatory education allotment. There would
therefore be no net cost to the state.
Section 12: It is estimated that one program administrator and one
administrative technician, with annual support costs of $94,094, as well
as a one-time $200,000 contract in 2003, would be needed to assist the
advisory committee in developing the voluntary gold performance rating
system from 2002 to 2004. Section 3(d) of the bill requires
implementation of the system "beginning with 2006-2007 school year or an
earlier school year." The agency estimates that a three-year development
period (from 2002 to 2004) would be adequate, thus making the 2004-05
school year the appropriate year for implementation of the system. Upon
implementation of the system in 2005, it is estimated that an additional
two program administrators would be needed to administer the voluntary
rating system, at an additional annual cost of $110,796.
Local Government Impact
To the extent that test development draws funds from the compensatory
education allotment of the Foundation School Program, there would be a
reduction of state aid to districts.
Source Agencies: 701 Texas Education Agency
LBB Staff: JK, CT, PF, JM