As a reminder, here's my breakdown of the SBOE's agenda this week, Tuesday-Thursday - at this link.
One of the responsibilities of the Texas State Board of Education is to release what are called "Proclamations" which sets the textbook adoption process in motion, specifically the bidding process by textbook publishers.
Proclamation 2012 is the one that should put new science textbooks in schools, grades K-12, in the fall of 2012. But, as I mentioned yesterday, the SBOE was supposed to take action on Proc 2012 at the July 2009 meeting, but they put it off three times, and here it was again on their agenda yesterday.
The grim reality is that the Legislature did not set aside enough money to fully fund Proc 2012, so what options did the SBOE have - fund certain grades, put it off entirely (again), or . . . fund supplemental materials only?
They are going with the last option for high school core courses only, with possibly the addition of middle school supplementals as well. The supplementals would literally be supplemental textbook materials only addressing the new parts of the Science TEKS that the SBOE adopted last year. The final vote on this comes on Friday, but their motions and voting yesterday was all about putting off Proc 2012 indefinitely, and only funding supplementals.
You can read my livetweeting of their discussion on this at @museblogger (scroll down to start at the beginning of their discussion.) To cut to the chase, the big disappointment in observing their discussions was to see that they were in absolute shock that there is a timeline problem. "You mean we approved new Science TEKS last year that are required to be implemented this Fall without there being new textbooks in schools? Wait, are you also saying high schools are required to start implementing End of Course Exams in Science in the Spring of 2012 - with no new textbooks in schools? Can someone show me a chart on this? Really? What are we supposed to tell our constituents back home?" Yeah, the discussion went pretty much like that. By the way, I have a chart on that - that I created. As well as a side by side chart of new science TEKS and old science TEKS - that I created, with implications for instruction. Sigh.
Something I don't think they realize is that only Biology has an End of Course Exam in the Spring of 2012. The Chemistry End of Course phases in the Spring of 2013, and Physics the Spring of 2014. But, all grades - K-12 - have new Science TEKS, with the most dramatic changes coming in middle school. I can't see how supplemental materials for those grades would be anything less than a new textbook.
By the way, textbook publishers were clearly a part of TEA offering up supplementals as a solution to lack of funding for Proc 2012 (that was obvious from the discussions yesterday.) This is a better option for them than losing the opportunity to make money off of Science textbooks in Texas all together.
A couple of things to note:
1. Even with a shortened timeline on getting supplementals ready to implement in schools vs. the timeline for getting traditional textbooks ready, it will be the new SBOE members (the ones elected this November) who will have the decision making power as to their content, not the current Board.
2. Supplementals mean the new TEKS - the changes that were not palatable to most of the Science community - will be highlighted and presented in a separate way.
3. The SBOE is behind on issuing the Proclamation for Social Studies books - Proc 2013 should be issued at this meeting, but that is not on the agenda - or the horizon.
4. The shortened timeline for adoption of supplementals means the review of the materials will occur next Spring - when teachers are teaching (the ones who usually comprise the textbook review committees.) So, TEA would possibly have to look elsewhere for reviewers.
Tincy Miller was a voice of reason on the Board yesterday - and the only one who remembered History (yep, I'm punting to today's agenda with that) - with her warnings that there is no guarantee the Lege will provide even enough funding for supplemental materials. Don McLeroy was alarmed that second graders might read science materials off of a computer, which makes no difference at all because the Lege already mandated that school districts can spend their textbook allotment on digital materials, rather than hard copy textbooks. Welcome to 2012 and the digital world, Mr. McLeroy.
So, in the middle of all the hollering and screaming about the Social Studies standards, we have this - science textbooks on the SBOE agenda for final voting on Friday.
Pop the popcorn, and keep watching.
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