TX Board of Ed in July--Fireworks, to end an era...

A few weeks after the Fourth of July, there were plenty of fireworks at the Texas State Board of Education meeting. I was on vacation, but my sources have filled me in on the excitement, which culminated with several members storming out near the end of the day in frustration and anger. But the most peculiar development was the request for publishers to re-evaluate their bids and reduce their prices because there isn't enough money to fully fund the Reading/Literature adoption.

Oh, and at this meeting, Gail Lowe (R-The Faction, Lampasas) took over as the new Chair from Dr. McLeroy (R-The Faction, Bryan) who failed to be confirmed by the Texas Senate. (But that wasn't the "end of the era" I'm talking about...)

One contentious issue related to money--some Board members (especially The Faction) wanted to fire the current investment advisory firm and hire a different group (NEPC). Because of a few well-timed absences on the part of vice chair Lawrence Allen (D-Houston) and Rick Agosto (D-San Antonio), The Faction (usually a minority of 7) was a majority of the remaining quorum, and they were able to make this happen, despite objections (and assertions that some member(s) may have a conflict of interest...).

When it came to Charter School applications, the Board committee that evaluates them had recommended NOT awarding any because there would be another slot opening up before the next Board meeting, and that way they could award two charters instead of one, and nobody would have to re-apply. The Faction decided to award one charter immediately anyway, and with the absences, they had the votes to do it.

The obvious relish that The Faction took in voting what they wanted in was too much for some Board members on the losing side of the vote--several walked out of the room, fuming. (Still not the "end of the era...")

What may be a far more important development was the funding shortfall. The Legislature, trying to maintain a balanced budget, appropriated
enough money to fund only 85% of the Reading/Literature adoption. (Given the economy, there's no reason to believe that in the coming years the state will suddenly be flush with funds, so this is probably not the first time there will be a problem like this.) Typically, Texas buys 105% of the actual amount that districts order,
to allow for future school openings, replacement copies, etc. The Board
voted to scale that back to 103%. They made the highly unusual request that publishers reduce their prices, even though bids had already been submitted. (As written in a previous post, we learned in August that publishers scaled back between 1% and 7% mostly--with one exception scaling back nearly 20%. The Board is expected to revise the adoption call already underway to establish a new, lower minimum price.) So they haven't got both ends to meet in the middle yet.

But the handwriting is on the wall--the formerly sacred and ever-flowing wellspring of Texas textbook dollars and comfortable "state maximum prices" is starting to dwindle, right at the time that a) legislation takes effect allowing schools to spend these funds on software or hardware; and b) districts that accept open-source or cheaper materials get to share in the cost savings. For basal publishers, this is an unwelcome but unignorable wake-up call: the pie is getting smaller, and it will forever forward be divided among many, many players, and price will now be an issue like it never was before. The days of the Great (and incredibly lucrative) Texas Adoptions, and all the wild free-with-order giveaways are coming to an end, just as surely and swiftly as the cattle drives ended when barbed wire fenced in huge swaths of the state. And that truly is the end of an era.