HB 4 removes involvement of elected State Board           and taxpayers in textbook review process. The NCES published a document in 2003 concluding that available research does not show a solid correlation between computer use and student achievement.  (The National Center for Education Statistics, 2003:  http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/200315.pdf) Yet, in Texas, proposed legislation moves full steam ahead to transform the classroom into the computer room. How many cases of carpel tunnel syndrome and other computer related maladies will we see in the next couple of decades?  Those of us who work on computers all day know that this is a real problem. HB 4 would bypass the current mandatory review processes by the elected State Board of Education and taxpayers.  Officials chosen by the electorate to represent them and citizen involvement in the infrastructure they fund are the cornerstone of our democratic process.  Currently volunteer citizens review the books and over 50% of the errors in the books are found by the citizen reviewers.  The TEA official review panels may only comment that text corresponds with an essential element of the curriculum for the conforming and nonconforming list so citizen involvement is essential. .   HB 4 allows publishers, in some instances, to market directly to school districts without going through the review process.  Consequently, instructional materials chosen by the district may be aligned with the TEKS but will not have had the benefit of citizen review.   All electronic textbooks and related software should be required to go through a review process which will insure that parents and taxpayers, as well as the people’s elected representatives have some input into what their children are being taught. And there are the practical considerations: 1.        Textbooks have shelf lives of decades and are stand alone learning materials. 2.        Electronic textbooks require computers which have to constantly be discarded and re-purchased – an additional expense to our ISD’s.   3.        Texas cities experience power outages during hurricane season. 4.        Passwords for some online books expire within a year, and publishers have devised various mechanisms that prevent students from sharing passwords with friends or swapping downloaded versions of books. 5.        One downloadable book by McGraw-Hill "locks" itself to the computer on which it is installed which prevents viewing from any other computer. 6.        The same book has limited “page views” generally four times the number of pages in the book. So in a 100-page book, a reader can look at one page 400 times, say, or all the pages four times. 7.        The National Association of College Stores surveyed approximately 4,000 students at 21 campuses and 73 percent preferred buying paper textbooks and 11 percent preferred electronic versions. 8.        The Houston Chronicle reported that “Robert Collinge, a professor of economics at the University of Texas at San Antonio,  …A 9.        at the request of The Chronicle,… polled his students through an online discussion board…Of the 20 students who responded, most said they weren't interested.”   Recommendations: 1.        Require all new material to go through the review process.  There should be no loopholes. 2.        Electronic textbooks should be used on a trial basis until the above practical considerations are statistical data are explored. Back to Legislation