Texas Includes School Librarians in 65 Percent Solution
Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 4/7/2006
In a huge victory for media specialists, Texas has agreed fund the salaries of school librarians under its 65 percent solution rule.
State Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley on April 6 agreed to classify school librarians as instructional expenses, meaning they now qualify for a portion of the nearly $1 billion in expenditures that will be made available for classrooms. Neeley has been charged with carrying out 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. The National Center for Education Statistics’s definition of in-class instruction, the guideline used to create the controversial 65 percent formula, includes teachers and instructional aides but not school librarians. Texas media specialists, however, lobbied hard to be included in the funding.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.
