The state’s education budget shortfall is in the news every day, but there’s so much going on,  it’s hard to keep up with it.

So your handy-dandy library staff has created this list of resources in case you’d like to keep up with what is going on.

(Annoying Librarian tip:   Part of tracking any issue is knowing where to start–so look for helpful ‘pathfinders’ or sets of links like this whenever you are doing research!)

First stop on the tour–the Texas Legislature site has ways to look up a bill and track its progress, look up education bills in general, or look up any legislators’ websites individually.

There are two ways education issues are handled in the legislature. 

The appropriations committees are the ones who determine the money–what the budget proposals will be, what will be cut, what fees will be raised, etc.    The Senate Appropriations subcommittee is called the “Subcommittee on Public Education Funding” and it consists of Chairperson Senator Shapiro, along with members Duncan, Estes, Lucio, Patrick, Seliger, and West.   The House Appropriations subcommittee which works on education is called the “Subcommittee on Article 3” and it consists of Chairperson Representative Hochberg, along with Representatives Aycock, Crownover, Giddings, Morrison, Diane Patrick and Mike Villarreal. 

Secondly, there are the legislators who work on the bills that are about education itself.  Members of the committees are listed below.

The House Public Education Committee is made up of Chair Rob Eissler and Vice Chair Scott Hochberg and members Alma Allen, Jimmie Don Aycock, Harold Dutton Jr., Ryan Guillen, Dan Huberty, Mark Shelton, Todd Smith, Mark Strama and Randy Weber.  The Senate Public Education Subcommittee Members are Shapiro (Chair), Dan Patrick, Seliger, Carona, Van de Putte, Gallegos, Ogden, West and Wendy Davis.

If you care to contact a legislator for any reason, either local or federal, here are some excellent tips about writing your legislator.

Second stop — look for organizations who are connected to the issue you are interested in.

Many organizations track bills at their own sites or have newsletters that summarize what is going on–here are a few choices of those below.  (*Librarian alert–always be sure to think about the organization and whatever ‘slant’ they might have on issues.)

The TASSP (Texas Association of Secondary School Principals) has a very helpful breakdown of education bills by topic.  This list rocks–very helpful! (and easy to read)

Teacher organizations like TCTA and ATPE have legislative updates on their websites. (ATPE and TCTA).

TASB (Texas Association of School Boards) has a very helpful flow chart of how a bill gets passed, and also much more on their main website about legislation.

The Texas Tribune lists the bills and their status on their website, broken down by many different issues.  (Click on education for school related bills.)

All of the above sites have email lists you can subscribe to if you are interested.

Librarian tip:  One other handy way to keep up with what is going on is to go to Google Alerts, type in your search terms, and set up an email alert that comes to your email daily with any links published using those keywords.  Easy and convenient!

Knowledge does equal power, so anytime you want to know more about something, put your research skills to work!