Librarians a Part of 65 Percent Rule?

Texas moves closer to classifying librarians as instructional expenses; final decision in July

By Laura B. Weiss -- School Library Journal, 5/1/2006

It may be a bit early to pop open the champagne, but Texas librarians are celebrating their state’s decision to fund media specialists’ salaries and materials under its 65 percent solution rule. If officially adopted, Texas will be the first state 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.

Governor Rick Perry’s executive order that school districts spend at least 65 cents of every dollar on classroom instruction must first pass through 30 days of public comments, and librarians are hoping that their inclusion in the rule will become final in July.

“We are very pleased that the [Texas education] commissioner has decided to include us in the draft rule,” says Gloria Meraz, spokeswoman for the Texas Library Association, cautiously adding that things could change during the rule’s 30-day comment period.

State Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley, who is in charge of carrying out Perry’s executive order, agreed on April 6 to classify school librarians as in-class instruction, says Rita Chase, the Texas Education Agency’s acting managing director of school financial audits, who helped draft the rule.

Under the current plan, the 65 percent requirement will be phased in over three years at 55 percent for the 2006 to 2007 academic year, 60 percent for the 2007 to 2008 academic year, and 65 percent for the 2008 to 2009 academic year, Chase says.

Texas media specialists lobbied hard to be included in the formula’s definition of in-classroom instruction. Under the National Center for Education Statistics’ definition of in-class instruction, the guideline used to craft the controversial 65 percent formula, teachers and instructional aides are included—but not school librarians.

“We know that school librarians are teachers, and what we needed the state to do was recommend in [its] policy that librarians are teachers,” Meraz says.

If the rule doesn’t get derailed by massive changes, it will go into effect July 16, says Chase. “I don’t think there’s going to be any contention against” including school libraries, but with the Texas state legislature in session, it’s hard to predict the final outcome, Chase says.

In a display of grass-roots lobbying, a group of Texas school librarians sounded the alarm about the 65 percent rule last winter by launching a Web site (www.geocities.com/txschlibrarian) to alert fellow state librarians that their funding was in jeopardy and to ask them to write letters of protest to the education commissioner and governor.

Texas school districts spend 54 percent of their budgets in the classroom. First Class Education, a national interest group behind the 65 percent movement, purports that billions of dollars will be available for teachers and kids if all states raised that amount to at least 65 percent. So far, only three other states—Kansas, Louisiana, and Georgia—have adopted the 65 percent rule.