LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD

Austin, Texas

FISCAL NOTE, 83RD LEGISLATIVE REGULAR SESSION

March 22, 2013

TO:	Honorable Dan Patrick, Chair, Senate Committee on Education
FROM:	Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:	SB1724 by Patrick (Relating to end-of-course assessment instruments administered to public high school students and other measures of secondary-level performance.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted

Estimated Two-year Net Impact to General Revenue Related Funds for SB1724, Committee Report 1st House, Substituted: a positive impact of $28,300,000 through the biennium ending August 31, 2015.

The bill would make no appropriation but could provide the legal basis for an appropriation of funds to implement the provisions of the bill.

General Revenue-Related Funds, Five-Year Impact:

Fiscal Year	Probable Net Positive/(Negative) Impact to General Revenue Related Funds
2014	$14,150,000
2015	$14,150,000
2016	$14,150,000
2017	$14,150,000
2018	$14,150,000

All Funds, Five-Year Impact:

Fiscal Year	Probable Savings/(Cost) from Foundation School Fund 193
2014	$14,150,000
2015	$14,150,000
2016	$14,150,000
2017	$14,150,000
2018	$14,150,000

Fiscal Analysis

The bill would limit end-of-course assessments to Algebra I, Biology, English I, English II, and United States History. The bill would require the English I and II end-of-course assessments to assess both reading and writing in the same assessment. The bill would eliminate the requirement that a student’s performance on an end-of-course assessment shall account for 15 percent of the student’s final grade for the course.

The bill would eliminate the requirement that a student shall achieve a minimum cumulative score on end-of-course assessments to graduate, and instead would require a student to achieve a minimum score on each end-of-course assessment to graduate.

Methodology

The bill would reduce the number of end-of-course assessments from 15 to 5.

Reducing the number of end-of-course assessments would result in savings of $14.2 million annually. The estimated savings for eliminating the Geometry, Algebra II, Chemistry, Physics, World Geography, and World History end-of-course assessments would be $1.15 million per fiscal year, per end-of-course assessment. The estimated savings from eliminating the English III Reading end-of-course assessments would be $2.1 million annually, the estimated savings from eliminating the English III Writing Assessment would be $4.3 million annually, and the estimated savings of combining the reading and writing end-of-course assessments into one assessment each for English I, English II, and English III would be $0.9 million annually.

Local Government Impact

The bill would require each district to offer additional accelerated instruction to each student in any subject in which that student has failed an end-of-course assessment that the student is required to pass in order to graduate before the next scheduled test administration without any cost to the student and would require each district to budget sufficient funds for this purpose. The bill would prohibit a district from budgeting funds received under the compensatory education allotment until the district has adopted a budget to support additional accelerated instruction.

Source Agencies:

701 Central Education Agency, 781 Higher Education Coordinating Board

LBB Staff:

UP, JBi, JSc, AH, GO