Bilingual Textbooks for Tyler Schools

TYLER — Former Smith County Commissioner JoAnn Fleming says Texas is up to $20 billion in the red. In this economic crunch, the state is still spending large amounts of money on textbooks. According to Texas Education Code, public schools across the state are required to provide textbooks for kids who speak Spanish. School kids in Tyler and across the state who are put in ESL, or English as a Second Language class, get two sets of textbooks. One book is in English, and the other is in Spanish. According to KETK, this is doubling the number of textbooks and the costs. Tyler ISD and Texas Education Agency were both unable to tell us how much money it costs to have 2 sets of books.