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TX New Rules: E-Books & Open-Source: End-run past Tx Bd of Ed?
It's an election year, and the Faction of ultra-conservatives on the Texas Board of Education could be poised to tumble from a near-majority-with-several-likely-swing-votes to a small minority. While the New York Times and others have picked up this story, a quieter but far more epic change is already shifting the ground beneath the educational publishing industry and the Texas adoption game.
A pair of bills passed in the spring 2009 Texas Legislative session are being implemented now, and they spell the beginning of the end for "the way things were." One bill allows for the adoption of electronic materials, including hardware (and elementary school science kits), with textbook funds. Another would allow the state to use some textbook funds to create open-source materials that could be distributed at cost to districts and charter schools.
Both include a mandate that any cost savings over the old "every student gets a book" model are split with the districts/charter schools, providing a huge incentive to the cash-strapped districts to move away from printed materials from publishers. What's more, these new laws allow the appointed Commissioner of Education all the power and authority over the selection, authorization, and approval of these alternatives. (That is, the loud, noisy, and fractious State Board of Education has no authority, except for the right to comment on the Commissioner's decisions--which they would have done anyway...they just can't help but speak up when they're feeling their oats!)
Today, the Commissioner of Education's office released the new rules they're proposing to govern the processes for these two new types of materials. They're not final, but they provide an interesting glimpse into what this brave new world might be like.
In order to avoid the embarrassment the State Board of Education faced over their "experts," who frequently were merely people with specific axes to grind, and no training or credentials in the field in question, the Commissioner's new rules carefully defines which kind of "experts" will help vet these materials: "The term recognized expert includes university professors, public school teachers, members of the business community, and citizens of Texas with a strong background in a particular discipline."
To maintain the wonderful
He's also planning to keep the rule that every TEKS standard be "hit" at least three separate times in the materials (as is the rule for printed textbooks).
Finally, another hallmark of the Texas adoption will apparently be preserved: the dreaded Texas error fines. Errors identified subsequent to submission of corrected copies but before adoption will be subject to $5,000 fines for every occurence, in software as in hardback student editions.
In the first year of the adoption, the fines jump to $25,000 plus 1% of revenue for each error that interferes with student learning, $15,000 plus 1% for each teacher material error, and $5,000 plus 1% per error that "...reviewers don't consider serious..." (that's an actual quote from the proposed rules).
In the second year, the leap to $30,000/$20,000/$10,000 plus 1%, respectively.
While a number of software companies have been waiting for this moment to leap into the Texas Adoption process, they may need to think twice about their business model and whether or not their bug-checking process can survive these kinds of fines...
There will also be penalties for failure to maintain websites and online materials, and failure to deliver materials 24/7, but these will be itemized and spelled out in contracts on a case-by-case basis rather than being enshrined in the rules.
For those who are policy wonks, here's a link to the new rules.(http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=8375&menu_id=962)
