NOTE:  As provided in LFC policy, this report is intended only for use by the standing finance committees of the legislature.  The Legislative Finance Committee does not assume responsibility for the accuracy of the information in this report when used for other purposes.

 

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F I S C A L   I M P A C T   R E P O R T

 

 

SPONSOR:

Sanchez, B.

 

DATE TYPED:

3/19/03

 

HB

 

 

SHORT TITLE:

Hispanic and Native American

 Educational Materials

 

SB

396/aSEC/aSFl#1/aHEC

 

 

ANALYST:

L. Baca

 

APPROPRIATION

 

Appropriation Contained

Estimated Additional Impact

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY03

FY04

FY03

FY04

 

 

 

NFI

 

 

 

 

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

 

Relates to SB 444, Educational Instructional Materials Law

 

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

 

Responses Received From

State Department of Education (SDE)

 

SUMMARY

     

      Synopsis of HEC Amendments

 

The amendments adopted by the House Education Committee strike Item 2 of Senate Floor Amendment #1, strike the terms “be multicultural in content” and insert the following underlined passage:

 

            The materials adopted shall “contain material that is relevant to the cultures, and languages, history and experiences of multi-ethnic students”.

 

      Synopsis of SFl Amendment

 

Senate Floor Amendment #1 strikes Senate Education Committee #4,  and strikes “be multicultural in content” and inserts “contains material that is relevant to the cultures, languages, history and experiences of Hispanic and Native American Students.”

 

(The net effect of the amendment is that it removes the terms “the state’s” that preceded Hispanic and Native American students in SEC amendment #4.)

 

      Synopsis of SEC Amendments

 

The Amendments adopted by the Senate Education Committee change the title and requirements of the bill to “Hispanic and Native American Materials,” and require that 10% of instructional material on the instructional material multiple list concerning language arts and social studies contain material that is relevant to the cultures, languages, histories and experiences of the state’s Hispanic and native American students.  In the original bill, the content requirement was applied to all instructional areas.

 

     Synopsis of Original Bill

 

Senate Bill 396 amends the Instructional Material Law to require that 10%of all instructional material on the multiple lists shall be multicultural in content.

 

     Significant Issues

 

The SDE defines multicultural materials as those materials that contain intellectual content framed in contexts familiar or common to students of different cultures, geographic regions and language groups.

 

According to the SDE, State Board of Education appoints persons to recommend instructional materials for inclusion in the state’s “adopted instructional materials list,” and these Instructional Materials are instructed to consider the multicultural content and implications of all materials submitted for adoption.

 

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

 

The SDE’s Instructional Material Bureau staff will be required to work with external partners to develop a definition for “multicultural” specific to instructional materials and to establish clear guidelines to evaluate the multicultural content of materials.

 

TECHNICAL ISSUES

 

The terms “multicultural in content” are not defined.  Controversy in future instructional materials selections could be avoided if the terms were defined in statute.

 

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

 

The SBE’s adopted instructional materials list includes dozens of diverse teaching tools in addition to textbooks.  Whether the materials should “weighted” in some way to show their frequency of use (importance) raises an issue that could be hotly debated among Instructional Materials Commissioners and between the Commissioners and publishers’ representatives.

 

POSSIBLE QUESTIONS

 

1.                  Will it be difficult for the SDE staff to determine that 10% of the adopted instructional materials are multicultural in content?

2.                  How “multicultural in content” are the currently adopted materials, 5% or more?

3.                  How might enacting this bill impact the process to adopt instructional materials?

 

LRB/yr/njw/ls