The Texas Faculty Association

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Urgent - Action Requested!

TFA opposes HB 960 and HB 956 relating to policy regarding the use of textbooks in certain courses offered by public institutions of higher education.

HB 960 (Herrero) and HB 956 (Hochberg) are scheduled for a hearing on Monday, March 12 at 8:00 a.m. before the House Higher Education Committee. It is imperative that you contact immediately the members of the Committee to urge them to vote against these two bills. We do not want HB 960 & HB 956 to get out of the Committee. They must be stopped now! Please share this alert with your colleagues.

WHAT HB 960 DOES
HB 960 by Representative Abel Herrero (D, Corpus Christi) is substantially the same bill that TFA beat back two years ago. It requires the governing board of each institution of higher education that offers courses in the core curriculum to adopt a policy that regulates the use of textbooks in core curriculum courses at the institution. The policy:

Must encourage faculty members to teach core curriculum courses using the same textbook and the same editions of those textbooks to the extent practicable from one academic year to the next;
Must require that, absent good cause for a change as established by the appropriate faculty member, department, or school, the same textbook and textbook edition, or textbooks and editions, as applicable, be used for a period of three academic years in a specific core curriculum course, regardless of the faculty member teaching the course and regardless of how frequently the institution offers the course during that period;
May provide that, as applied to any specific course, the period may include one or more academic years occurring immediately before the policy takes effect.

In order to demonstrate "good cause for changing the textbook requirements for a course," the textbooks and textbook editions must reflect:

Significant advances in knowledge or technology affecting the subject matter; and
Significant differences between sections of a course in emphasis placed on one or more course topics or objectives.

Finally, the bill mandates that the governing board shall seek advice and comment from faculty and students at the institution before adopting a policy and that the policy shall be made available to the public by publishing it in the institution's catalog and by any other method the board considers appropriate. The governing board is required to file a copy of the policy with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

TFA OPPOSES HB 960 BECAUSE IT WOULD:

Prevent instructors in some instances from using the textbook that best complements their special expertise or training in teaching core curriculum courses. A college education should not be a "cookie cutter" experience. One of the best attributes of American higher education is that student's benefit from the wide variety of approaches that professors take to the same subject matter.
Create a textbook regulation bureaucracy on campus that is almost guaranteed to cause problems. A professor who believes that he or she has "good cause" to change textbooks could, nonetheless, be turned down and thus be forced to use a textbook with which the professor is dissatisfied.
Create as many problems as it solves. What happens when the instructor has to assign a textbook that is no longer in print and the bookstore runs out of copies?
Set a bad precedent by involving the state government in micromanaging our public institutions of higher education. Governing boards already have the authority to set textbook policies; their authority should not be undermined by the Legislature.
Fail to address the source of the problem—book companies that routinely come out with a new edition of a textbook that is not a major improvement over the old one so that they may maintain profits.

WHAT HB 956 DOES
HB 956 by Scott Hochberg (D, Houston) authorizes the Texas Bldg. and Procurement Commission to negotiate textbook prices with publishers. The bill remains silent on what might happen when the Commission fails to negotiate what it considers a reasonable price for a textbook. The publisher might be prohibited from selling the book or might refuse to sell it at the price set by the Commission. Also, HB 956 has a "length of use" provision in it which states that "each textbook that a student is required to use shall be in print for no fewer than three years from initial release without being superseded by a new edition." One might ask how the state of Texas can force a publisher located in Chicago to keep a book in print for three years. HB 956 has some provisions in it which TFA could support, but overall this bill is bad.

WHAT TO DO
Contact Geanie Morrison, Chairperson of the House Higher Education Committee, and the other members of the House Higher Education Committee. Politely tell them why you are opposed to HB 960 and 956. Ask them to oppose these bills. Tell them that you are a TFA member (if you are). Telephone calls are recommended. E-mails are okay, but legislators tend to pay less attention to them. Please do not use your employer's equipment to contact state officials. It is especially important to contact a member of the committee who represents your school. To find your school's state representative, visit Who Represents Me?.

Send your comments regarding HB 960 & HB 956 to Charles Zucker at charlesz@tsta.org. Please include your authorization to your name and that the school at which you teach.

Chair
Representative Geanie Morrison

Vice Chair
Representative Brian McCall

Representative Fred Brown

Representative Roberto Alonzo

Representative Helen Giddings

Representative Jimmie Don Aycock

Representative Donna Howard

Representative Diane Patrick

Representative Patrick Rose