The Initial Effects of House Bill 72 on Texas Public Schools: The Challenges of Equity and Effectiveness. Policy Research Project Report Number 70.

This report describes and evaluates the initial effects of the 1984 Texas Education Reform Bill (House Bill 72), in which the Texas legislature enacted a massive attempt to enhance both equity and effectiveness in the State's system of elementary and secondary education. Chapter 1 describes the Bill's various financing components and focuses on its initial effect on disparities in spending among rich and poor districts. Chapter 2 examines the various reforms aimed at improving the quality of teaching, and Chapter 3 focuses on the provisions that affect students. Chapters 4-7 deal with the effects of House Bill 72 on programs which seek to provide special educational services (compensatory education, bilingual education, special education, and vocational education). Chapter 8 describes the implementation of new prekindergarten and summer preschool programs. Chapter 9 discusses the difficulty of implementing curriculum reforms at the State and local levels, and focuses on the confusion that has resulted from House Bill 72's requirements and those of a 1981 law, House Bill 246, which called for different types of reform. Finally, Chapter 10 presents general conclusions and recommendations. The study uncovered widespread satisfaction with the general direction of reform, it is said, except in certain areas where implementation of the law has been difficult. The State, it is argued, must be willing to accept that education is likely to be more expensive in the future. (KH)