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If it's May in Austin during an odd-numbered-year, you can bet that there's a whirlwind of bills and amendments hovering around the Texas Capitol as invisible but pesky as a cloud of allergy-inducing live-oak pollen. All of Texas' law-making and appropriations business needs to conclude before June 1st adjournment, for the Legislature will not return to session until January 2011 (barring unforeseen special sessions). More than two dozen bills affecting instructional materials and/or the hapless State Board of Education have been filed. But which are already dead like doornails, and which might pass?

IMPORTANT CAVEAT: Governor Rick "Good Hair" "Most Likely to Secede" Perry has shown a past propensity for blindsiding the Legislature by waiting to wield the veto pen until the session ends, when they can't over-ride him. Frequently he uses it without warning, on matters that could not have been predicted to be an affront to him, so nothing's sure until he's signed it. With that said, here's what it looks like tonight...

"...WITH A GLASS OF LEMONADE" Category (passed House, likely to pass Senate)
Donna Howard (D-Austin)'s HB 772 would require that State Board of Education proceedings be webcast in video as well as their current audio. Given that this bill has been placed on the Senate's "consent" agenda, it is likely to be gaveled to approval with a herd of other bills and without much fuss.

"I'M NOT DEAD, YET" Category (passed House, still to get out of Senate Committee before 5/27/09 to make it to the floor)
Donna Howard struck again with a bunch of colleagues on HB 2037/HJR 77, which would allow for a statewide vote on a Constitutional Amendment to create a "Fund Management Council" of appointed officials to manage the state's Permanent School Fund (aka "the textbook fund"). The Senate Education committee does contain GOP members who are on record as saying the Board has gone too far, but it's not clear whether they will support something moving this drastic to the floor.

HB 2488 by Scott Hochberg (D-Houston) would allow for school districts to adopt open-source textbooks prepared by Texas universities and colleges, and then the districts would keep their share of the textbook money to spend as they see fit. (You can bet this one has the publishing industry lobbyists earning their money!)

Another show-stopper for the publishing industry is HB 4294, which would (for the first time EVER) allow textbook money to be spent on hardware, provided it was hardware to support use of an e-book or instructional technology that was approved by the State. Given how poorly funded some Texas schools are, it is likely that a bunch will opt for this as a way to bring technology without busting their budgets.

"I'M NOT DEAD YET, EITHER" Category (passed Senate, still needs to get out of House Committee and onto the floor fast
SB 1363 Curriculum Management Systems by Florence Shapiro (R-Plano, Chair of Senate Education Committee) would allow for the Board of Education and the Texas Education Agency to provide "additional guidance and clarification" on the meanings of the TEKS statements (State Standards), including exemplar activities. It would also require the Agency to establish a list of home-grown curriculum management systems created by districts and educational service centers, so that other districts could use them as well.

"SO CLOSE" Category (aka "See you in 2011 Session")
HB 710, by Patrick Rose (D-Dripping Springs) and others, lost its final approval 71 to 73 in the House late in the evening of Wednesday May 6th, after passing earlier hurdles on the floor. When the final vote was "verified," two who voted yes, said they intended to vote "no," as did another who'd been in the restroom. This exercise was necessary because there were enough absent that the original tally could have changed if the 5 absent members had been present. The speaker was present but not voting. (To hear the blogosphere tell of it, there was a tidal wave of pressure from the right wing to "stand up" against this effort to make the State Board of Education subject to Sunset Laws which would require it to justify its existence periodically or risk being abolished.)

"THE RECYCLING-BIN OF HISTORY" Category (aka "Maybe see you in 2011 session, also...")
There were many ideas that never made it out of committee, from replacing the Board with appointed members to holding non-partisan elections for the Board to disbanding the Board in favor of a panel of legislators. Also stuck in committee were efforts to insist on sex education that includes abstinence plus contraception (as opposed to abstinence-only...). Stalled in committee are also bills to reinstate "strengths and weaknesses" language in science standards, and a plan for the State Board to elect its own chair by a supermajority vote of its members, rather than by appointment by the Governor. And there are a dozen more, besides...