Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Kent Grusendorf

AUSTIN - Texas schoolchildren could go without new textbooks during the upcoming school year under budget plans pending in the Texas Capitol, textbook publishers and some school administrators warn.

In stark warnings delivered to lawmakers, publishers and school administrators claim that under current budget plans, school districts would have to scrape up money on their own -- or do without.

"Leaving it up to school districts to fund books opens the door to inequity," said Laurie Mankin, president of a school administrator organization.

But Republican budget writers say the issue isn't quite so clear-cut. Even if books for the upcoming school year get left out of the budget, schools may be able to make up for it during the 2006-07 school year through a new funding mechanism.

They also say that now is the time to begin moving to computer-based instruction.

"We're going to make sure that every child has instructional material for the courses that they're taking," said state Rep. Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, chairman of the House Public Education Committee.

In the punishing political war over public school finance, a secondary front has formed around the issue of school textbooks. The reason: Neither the House nor the Senate has included money for next year's textbooks in their separate budget proposals.

Although spending plans are not finalized, school adminstrators, educators and publishers are already pushing the panic button. Under the current plans, books that would not be purchased for next year include texts for fine arts, health education, physical education and books for non-English speakers who speak a language other than Spanish.

All told, that equates to about $380 million in textbooks.

"A lot of the [health] books are 16 years old, and a lot of the material about health, about sexually transmitted disease and HIV -- all that has changed," said Georgi Roberts, director of health and physical education for the Fort Worth school district.

But state Rep. Jim Pitts, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said it comes down to priorities.

"We did not feel like it was a priority of the budget or the school districts to get PE textbooks in the classroom, to get art and some of the other textbooks," said Pitts, R-Waxahachie.

But funds may still be available.

State Sen. Florence Shapiro, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, said she wants to include next year's textbook money in a separate bill. She said the State Board of Education approved those books in 2002, and so the state should honor that commitment.

"We must make good on our debts," said Shapiro, R-Plano.

Serving as a stark backdrop to the ongoing debate is the question of new technology. Education plans in the House and Senate call for transitioning to computers, software and other forms of electronic instruction.

On Friday, Grusendorf toured an Irving school to draw attention to new technology and highlight the proposed creation of an "instructional allotment" in which the state would mix funding dedicated for traditional textbooks with money for technology.

Educators could access money from the new instructional allotment for printed textbooks, electronic textbooks, online subscriptions or other computer-based materials that cover the required curriculum, Grusendorf said.

"Right now, the information in textbooks is updated no sooner than every six years," he said. "Last year, our history books still identified Ann Richards as governor. Electronic instructional materials can be updated almost immediately."

But House budget writers say new instructional allotment money wouldn't kick in until the second year of the state's two-year budget cycle. So, school districts can't access the money for health, PE, ESL and fine arts textbooks that are due in the upcoming school year until the 2006-07 school year.

And Roberts, of the Fort Worth school district, said the old books are falling apart. "I know for a fact that when I started 13 years ago, we had [health] books in place that were already old -- I mean, even then, they were already gone," she said.