| TO: | Honorable Kent Grusendorf, Chair, House Committee on Public Education |
| FROM: | John Keel, Director, Legislative Budget Board |
| IN RE: | HB1914 by Howard (Relating to certain requirements relating to public school reading and mathematics instruction and textbooks.), As Introduced |
The bill would require the State Board for Educator Certification to adopt training requirements in compliance with the provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. This adoption is not expected to have a significant fiscal impact on the state.
The bill would require that the state adopt a norm-referenced reading assessment to be administered to third grade students, and that the state pay the costs of purchasing and scoring the assessment and distributing the results to districts. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) estimates that the cost of this assessment would be $1.80-$2.25 for each of the approximately 320,000 third graders, for a total of $576,000 to $720,000 annually. This assessment would have no additional cost to the state, as state law directs student assessment costs to be paid from the Compensatory Education allotment of the Foundation School Program.
The bill would require that school districts provide teachers who teach reading at any grade level or special education at least five days of training related to the provisions of No Child Left Behind. TEA estimates that the bill would require local districts to train approximately 189,000 teachers at a one-time cost of $5 million statewide. It is presumed that as new teachers enter the system they will have received the required training as part of the certification process.
| Source Agencies: | 701 Central Education Agency, 705 State Board for Educator Certification
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| LBB Staff: | JK, CT, UP, JGM
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