At the request of ACSA, the Legislative Analyst’s Office has issued a report on the cost trends in textbooks and the adoption of instructional materials. The LAO identifies a number of problem areas and recommends several reforms aimed at lowering IM costs, as well as increasing choice for schools and the overall effectiveness of the process.
Schools have become increasingly concerned about the fast rising costs of adopting instructional materials. ACSA has been working on this issue for some time, but until recently was unable to make any headway in the Capitol. After much work, ACSA was able to sponsor a bill, AB 2722, which passed last session.
Beginning in 2013-14, new textbook adoptions in the two biggest subject areas, English language arts and mathematics, will be scheduled so they don’t come so close together. But that still leaves much work in this area to be done.
The LAO agrees. “Reforming California’s Instructional Material Process” examined data for a 10-year period, from 1993-2003, and found that even when adjusting for inflation, IM costs for K-12 students rose by 80 percent, or $100 per student. The report states this was close to double the rate of growth for other states and four times the growth rate for “all other” K-12 instructional spending.
“Educators’ hands are tied, given the current textbook development and purchasing process,” said ACSA Legislative Advocate Sherry Skelly Griffith. “We have to buy what the state requires; we are not allowed to negotiate prices and we are given an inadequate amount of funding to cover the true costs. If we are to continue to have high quality textbooks, the state must recognize the cost of those textbooks and fund them adequately.”
Part of the problem, the LAO said, may lie in the adoption process. After passing four sets of evaluation criteria – academic content standards, curriculum frameworks, program/evaluation criteria and social content – and expert panels, the Curriculum Commission, the California Department of Education and the State Board of Education, IM adoptions finally reach the local level, where the process begins anew as a new subject adoption arrives. The report said this situation leads to “less competition among publishers, more limited district choice, higher cost, questionable quality and little useful information.”
To address these issues, the LAO report issues a set of six recommendations.
• Use fewer sets of evaluation criteria. The LAO recommends eliminating the use of curriculum frameworks to “retain focus on overarching content standards rather than specific pedagogical preferences.” This would potentially allow more small- and mid-sized publishers to submit materials.
• Streamline the review process. The LAO recommends eliminating the role of the Curriculum Commission in this area, to put California’s process in line with that of other states that have statewide adoption processes. The commission could continue its work in helping develop effective instructional programs.
• Offer districts voluntary extension of already adopted materials. This recommendation would extend for up to two consecutive adoption cycles. Schools would still have to replace lost or damaged materials and could purchase any new materials that become available. But the LAO notes that this option would be particularly helpful for an issue such as mathematics, which does not have frequent new developments affecting K-12 education.
• Shift focus back to core program by eliminating gratis items. The LAO posits that gratis items inflate the cost of core instructional materials. By requiring these items to be sold separately, the cost of core IM would come down. This would also serve the purpose of creating incentives for publishers to improve the quality of their core materials.
• Cap mid-cycle price increases. Currently there exist no caps on price increases during the two-year adoption cycle. By linking any increases to an annual inflationary index, it would offer protection for schools against unreasonable increases.
• Enhance information sharing. The LAO recommends a better IM information sharing system. This would include offering expert analysis based on five evaluation criteria on the CDE Web site.
This year ACSA is sponsoring Assembly Bill 1148, Brownley, D-Santa Monica, which will reauthorize the Instructional Materials Fund and include some reforms that will address costs. ACSA is working with publishers to achieve consensus on reforms.
“Our system of K-12 policymaking has allowed for a disconnect between what the State Board of Education demands publishers produce, the actual cost of the textbooks, and what the state budget provides in funding. This is truly a test case in the whole adequacy debate,” Griffith said.
The full LAO report can be accessed at www.lao.ca.gov.