| TO: | Honorable Florence Shapiro, Chair, Senate Committee on Education |
| FROM: | John S. O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board |
| IN RE: | SB548 by Zaffirini (relating to public school accountability for bilingual education and English as a second language and other special language programs. ), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted |
| Fiscal Year | Probable Net Positive/(Negative) Impact to General Revenue Related Funds |
|---|---|
| 2010 | ($876,561) |
| 2011 | ($1,003,739) |
| 2012 | ($979,739) |
| 2013 | ($1,194,112) |
| 2014 | ($1,170,112) |
| Fiscal Year | Probable Savings/(Cost) from General Revenue Fund 1 |
Change in Number of State Employees from FY 2009 |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | ($876,561) | 9.0 |
| 2011 | ($1,003,739) | 12.0 |
| 2012 | ($979,739) | 12.0 |
| 2013 | ($1,194,112) | 14.5 |
| 2014 | ($1,170,112) | 14.5 |
The bill would require the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to disaggregate academic excellence indicators for bilingual and English as a Second Language (special language programs) at the school district, campus, and open-enrollment charter school level and would create additional indicators. New indicators include comparative data regarding grade-level retention rates of students of limited English proficieny (LEP students) and non-LEP students, comparative data regarding the performance on state assessments of LEP and non-LEP students, and comparative data regarding the dropout rate betwen LEP and non-LEP students.
The bill would require that lead monitors of bilingual and special language programs be certified for bilingual education, English as a Second Language, or other special language programs. Emergency endorsements would not qualifiy as certification for these purposes.
TEA would be required to notify school districts or charter schools of a campus that is non-compliant with respect to bilingual or special language programs in writing within 30 days after an intervention begins. The bill specifies areas that school districts and charter schools would be required to review in response to notification of intervention.
The bill would require TEA to review annual improvement in bilingual or special language programs in relation to annual improvement goals set by the school district or charter school.
The bill would require school districts that are required to offer bilingual or special langauge programs to submit certain additional data to TEA through the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS). Required data would include whether or not a student has been classified as a LEP student while enrolled in Texas public schools, the school year in which the student entered grade 9, and the student's status as a continuing student, a graduate, a recipient of a high-school equivalency certificate, or a dropout.
TEA estimates that the provisions of the bill would require 8.0 additional FTEs in the Performance Based Monitoring division at a cost of $708,663 in FY2010 and $644,663 in each subsequent year, inclusive of salary, benefits, and other expenses.
TEA estimates that the provisions of bill would result in additional on-site monitoring visits, which would require 1.0 FTE in FY2010 at a cost of $72,897, 4.0 FTEs in FY2011 and FY2012 at a cost of $327,576 in FY2011 and $303,576 in FY2012, and 6.5 FTEs in FY2013 and FY2014 at a cost of $512,949 in FY2013 and $488,949 in FY2014. All FTE costs are inclusive of salary, benefits, and other expenses. Travel expenses are estimated at $10,000 annually in FY2011 and FY2012 and $15,000 annually in FY2013 and FY2014.
Costs for training and certification of monitors serving as lead monitors to comply with the provisions of the bill are estimated at $1,500 per year beginning in FY2011.
Modfications to PEIMS for the collection of new data are estimated to cost $95,000 in FY2010 and $20,000 in each subsequent year.
Modfications to PEIMS for the collection of new data are estimated to cost $95,000 in FY2010 and $20,000 in each subsequent year.
Affected school districts and open-enrollment charter schools would be required to meet one or more annual improvement goals.
School districts and open-enrollment charter schools would also be required to update locally developed or vendor-provided software systems to provide required data to the TEA through the PEIMS. Costs for updates to data collection systems are estimated at $5,000 per district, for an estimated statewide cost of $6 million for all 1,200 school districts and open-enrollment charter schools.
| Source Agencies: | 701 Central Education Agency
|
| LBB Staff: | JOB, JSp, JGM, JSc
|