Texas Mulls Over Including Librarians

By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 4/1/2006

Will Texas include school librarians in a controversial funding effort called the “65 percent solution”? There’s a 50–50 chance that they’ll fall under the definition of classroom instruction when the Texas Education Agency (TEA) publishes rules that will outline how to implement Governor Rick Perry’s executive order requiring school districts to spend at least 65 percent of their budgets on classroom instruction, says Rita Chase, TEA’s acting managing director of school financial audits.

TEA is delaying the release of the rules until mid-April “to see if it can include people like librarians into the mix” of teachers and instructional aides who fall under the National Center for Education Statistics’s definition of in-class instruction, the guideline used to create the 65 percent formula. Currently, school librarians don’t fall under the definition of classroom instruction and risk losing crucial funding.

“Librarians did a powerful job of lobbying to be included in the 65 percent solution,” says Chase, adding that Shirley Neeley, the state’s commissioner of education, is really taking the plight of media specialists into consideration before making her decision.

Texas school districts spend 54 percent of their budgets in the classroom. First Class Education, a national interest group behind the movement, purports that billions of dollars will be available for teachers and kids if all states raised that amount to at least 65 percent.