by Gail Lowe, State Board of Education member for District 14

Many joke that they breathe a sigh of relief when the Texas Legislature adjourns and state lawmakers head back home to their constituents. State Board of Education members didn't consider it a joking matter this spring, however, at the close of the legislature's third special session on school finance. Regardless of one's impressions of the resulting bills to provide property tax relief, extra funding for teachers and classrooms, and a reworking of the business franchise tax, one thing seems clear as pertains to the role of the SBOE: The attack on its authority continues.

The State Board of Education is the 15-member elected body that oversees the development of K-12 curriculum standards for Texas public schools. It also authorizes the adoption of textbooks for use in local classrooms and provides the funding to pay for those instructional materials through its careful investment of the Permanent School Fund.

The SBOE often serves as the last line of defense against what seems an ever-strengthening education bureaucracy. Its members answer directly to the parents of schoolchildren and other interested voters who placed them in office to represent mainstream values and excellence in education. Yet the Texas Legislature seems bent on transferring more and more of the elected board's authority to the Texas Education Agency and its appointed bureaucrats who operate independently of the elected SBOE and whose agenda often conflicts with what is best for children's educational interests.

Such was the case in the recent special session, as responsibility for the development of the high school curriculum standards was given to the commissioner of education. What traditionally has been the express authority of the elected State Board of Education now has been transferred to agency bureaucrats, all within the fine print of legislation designed to lower property taxes across the state.

For an excellent example of how out of touch the Texas Education Agency can be with what parents and teachers expect from public education, one need look no further than at recommendations the agency made at the last SBOE meeting in April. Curriculum staff decided spelling textbooks no longer were needed in elementary schools. The spelling content already was covered in reading books, they stated, as they advised the State Board of Education to forego renewal of contracts for these textbooks.

An independent review of reading texts and spellers, however, showed serious deficiencies in the limited spelling component of elementary-school reading books. The vocabulary worksheets teachers rely on to reinforce instruction and spelling reviews with various prefixes, suffixes, consonant blends and vowel sounds would have become a thing of the past, because these items are absent from the typical reading textbook. 

The SBOE intervened - thankfully - and unanimously authorized the reissuance of spelling books to districts that rely on those materials to supplement the instruction in their classrooms. Had the decision been left to the bureaucratic "experts," spellers and their workbooks no longer would have been available to Texas elementary students.

During the recent special session, the legislature also toyed with the suspension of two SBOE-authorized proclamations that are set to deliver math textbooks to junior high and high school students in 2007, and students in the elementary grades in 2008. It's difficult to understand why anyone would want to withhold the purchase of updated mathematics textbooks that align with the state's curriculum standards - particularly when the cost of those instructional materials is covered entirely by Permanent School Fund investments, rather than from tax dollars. Yet that is what was proposed.

Lawmakers did relent - for now - on the math books authorized by the SBOE, but their desire to revamp the textbook adoption process may portend difficulties to come in January, when the next regular legislative session convenes. After having diffused the State Board of Education's ability to control the curriculum standards, the move to strip further authority from the elected board to oversee textbooks and the Permanent School Fund can't be too far away.

That's why the support of grassroots political activists is so important to the conservatives on the SBOE. They understand the ongoing battle for the minds of our children and the indoctrination that often substitutes for knowledge-based education in public schools. Without an elected body that answers to its constituents and seeks to provide an education that supports the mainstream values of Texas families, there is no telling what outrageous education fad or liberal agenda may be mandated in the curriculum.

Let's continue working together to ensure that the authority for such decisions rests with the State Board of Education, not with an appointed educrat or administrative bureaucracy.