• Something's Afoot in the Texas Legislature: What You Need to Know About House Bill (HB) 1605: If you sell materials in Texas, you should be aware of HB 1605. Sponsored by the chair of the House Public Education Committee, the bill would codify commissioner of education, Mike Morath's proposal to radically change the instructional materials landscape in Texas. The bill was heard in House Public Education committee yesterday. The provisions of this bill that are likely to impact business in Texas are summarized in this article. 
  

Something's Afoot in the Texas Legislature: What You Need to Know About House Bill 1605

HB 1605, known around the Capitol as "The Amplify Bill," was heard in House Public Education Committee today. This 58-page bill is sponsored by the Chair of the House Public Education Committee and enacts commissioner of education Mike Morath's proposal to radically change the instructional materials landscape in Texas. This legislation reflects many of the strategies that have been implemented in other states that are also members of the Council of Chief State School Officer's (CCSSO) High-Quality Instructional Materials and Professional Development Network.

• Eliminates state proclamations and the instructional materials adoption cycle. (Texas Education Code (TEC) §31.022) 

• Combines the SBOE's alignment review process and the TEA's quality review process (the TRR process) under the commissioner's control. (TEC §31.022)

• Replaces the State Board of Education's (SBOE's) adoption process with an approval process. TEA will recommend reviewed materials to the SBOE for approval. Materials will be approved automatically if not rejected by the SBOE within 90 days. Approved materials will be included on a list maintained by the SBOE. The SBOE would have the authority to remove materials from the approved list if the applicable Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) are revised. (TEC §31.022)

• Requires the SBOE to incorporate cross-curricular vocabulary lists and at least one literary work for each grade level into the TEKS for ELA by February 2024. (TEC §28.002) 

• Requires TEA to develop and maintain an instructional materials website (i.e., the Texas Resource Review website) to assist districts in locating and selecting instructional materials. The website must provide the price, technology requirements, reviews, a statement of whether the material is SBOE approved or rejected and any other information TEA deems appropriate. (TEC §31.025)

• Authorizes TEA to purchase instructional materials and technology for school districts. (TEC §31.0216) Materials purchased under this section would not have to go through TEA review and SBOE approval process, and there is no language to suggest that districts would not have to adopt materials and technology purchased under this section.   

• Requires the commissioner to make available to school districts one or more OERs for a subject or grade level. The commissioner must provide a full-subject Tier 1 OER (i.e., defined as a core material) for English Language Arts and Math (grades PreK-8) and for all four core subjects (grades K-5)  in a manner that permits instruction to be provided in an integrated manner, for approximately 240 minutes of instructional time per day, including time for accelerated instruction. (TEC  §31.071)

• Requires TEA to establish an OER advisory board to ensure the alignment and quality of OERs. (TEC §31.0713) Requires that OERs be evaluated by parents, teachers or other experts and authorizes the commissioner to require the OERs to be revised in response to that feedback. (TEC § 31.072) Requires OERs to be reviewed through the TEA instructional materials review process, however TEA may pilot OERs before submitting the material for review, and a district may use an OER that has not been reviewed by TEA if the school board approves the use of the OER and the district proves to TEA that teachers support using it. (TEC §31.0721) Provides that the commissioner's decisions regarding the OER provisions are final and cannot be appealed. (TEC §31.076)

• Requires districts to adopt an OER transition plan in order to be eligible for the new $40 per student allotment for instructional materials described in the last bullet below. (TEC §31.0751) Requires TEA to develop and maintain a program to assist districts and charters in adopting and using OERs. TEA will assist districts and schools to maintain teachers' instructional flexibility and schedule instructional periods to allow classroom teachers enough time to effectively prepare and present instructional materials within their normal workday. (TEC §31.0752)

• Requires TEA to provide a school district assistance in evaluating, adopting or using instructional materials, upon request from the district. Unless otherwise provided, TEA could not require a district to adopt or otherwise use an instructional reviewed by TEA or included on the SBOE’s list. (TEC §31.0251)

• Allows a parent to request a local review of the teaching materials being used in his/her child's core curriculum classes. (TEC §28.002). Authorizes TEA to provide grants and develop standards for these reviews. Requires TEA to develop and submit for SBOE approval a rubric designed to determine the degree to which the material (a) corresponds with the district-or campus-adopted materials and (b) meets the rigor of the TEKS for the grade level. Requires TEA to train ESCs and other TEA-approved private providers to appropriately conduct these local reviews. (TEC §31.0252)

• Requires the SBOE to adopt standard terms and conditions for instructional materials procurement contracts and expands publishers' compliance duties. (TEC §31.152) It also requires publishers' materials to meet SBOE-developed standards for a new parent portal that districts must develop and to which all classroom teaching materials, including instructional materials, must be uploaded for parent inspection. (TEC § 26.006)  

• Authorizes the commissioner to use the state instructional materials and technology fund to pay for the TRR review process, the TRR website and to pay for all costs associated with the provisions related to OERs. (TEC § 31.021, 31.071) Provides districts with a $40 per student allotment to buy instructional materials that have been reviewed by TEA, approved by SBOE and meet certain other requirements. (TEC § 48.157) Districts that adopt an OER transition plan would also be eligible for an additional $20 per student allotment per year to cover OER printing and shipping costs. (TEC § 48.158) Thus, while the bill prohibits the commissioner from requiring a district or charter school to adopt an OER (TEC 31.073), the very limited funding that will be available to districts for instructional materials will likely lead to the widespread adoption of OERs. 

Members of the House Public Education Committee

Members of the Senate Education Committee

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