Honorable Larry Taylor, Chair, Senate Committee on Education
FROM:
Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
SB1484 by Taylor, Larry (Relating to the creation of an instructional materials web portal by the commissioner of education.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted
The bill would not result in additional General Revenue costs, but rather would be an administrative cost to be paid from existing instructional materials funding.
The bill would amend the Education Code to require the Commissioner to develop a web portal with information about all state-adopted instructional materials and other materials submitted for review by September 1, 2018 and to maintain the portal once developed. The bill would require the Commissioner use money in the state instructional materials fund, Fund 3, to pay any expense associated with the web portal and would make the web portal an allowable expense under the state instructional materials fund. The bill would require the web portal to contain certain information for each instructional material included in the portal; require the Commissioner to use a competitive process to contract for the development of the web portal; and require the Commissioner to contract with a private entity to conduct an independent analysis of each instructional material submitted by a publisher for inclusion in the portal and would require the analysis to include certain elements.
The bill would require the Commissioner to include a repository of open education resources and other electronic instructional materials that school districts and open-enrollment charter schools may access at no cost in the web portal. The bill would allow a school district or open-enrollment charter school to consider open educational resources and other electronic instructional materials included in the repository in determining whether each student has instructional materials that cover all elements of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills as required by 31.004(a), Education Code. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) estimates that the bill would result in total costs of $1.85 million in fiscal year 2018 with continuing costs of $450,000 in subsequent years. These amounts would be paid from existing instructional materials funding. The bill would take effect immediately if passed with necessary voting margins, or September 1, 2017.
Local Government Impact
TEA estimates that using funding from the state instructional materials fund for development and management of the web portal and associated review would result in a decrease in the biennial instructional materials allotment that each school district and charter school receives of approximately 32 cents per student. However, districts and schools could experience savings as a result of selecting open education resources from the web portal in lieu of other instructional materials.