Talking to your SBOE folks is part of what needs to be done. But we also need to be talking to the FACE of the people who authored HB 1605. What they said they wanted to do - isn't what's happening. See below for an analysis and some action items. I wrote a sample letter for you to use.
Representative Brad Buckley (R-Salado), the primary author of House Bill 1605, pitched the legislation as a solution to teacher burnout by providing a "pre-vetted" curriculum.
The tension between his stated goals and the reality of the Stotsky-inspired reading list aren't "mathing."
Representative Buckley’s Stated Rationale
According to the official Author’s Statement of Intent and Buckley’s testimony, the bill was designed to address three specific problems:
The "Double Job" Problem: Buckley argued that teachers are currently forced to perform "two jobs": creating curriculum/lesson design and actual teaching. HB 1605 aims to provide a full sequence of materials so teachers only have to focus on lesson planning and differentiation.
The Grade-Level Gap: He cited studies suggesting that only 17% of students were engaged with on-grade-level classwork because teachers were sourcing materials that were "two to three grade levels below" where they should be.
Administrative Relief: The bill explicitly prohibits districts from requiring teachers to spend their planning time "creating or selecting" materials unless they are specifically paid extra through a supplemental contract.
The Feasibility Contradiction
So here's the problem in a chart.
| Buckley’s Goal (HB 1605) | Stotsky List Reality (2026 Mandate) |
| Reduce Teacher Burden | Adds 19 complex works that require more instructional minutes than the school year provides. |
| Ensure Rigorous Content | Relies on a 15-year-old survey (Forum 4) that was originally intended for high school honors students, not a general K-12 population. Additionally, no teachers have vetted these texts for grade level appropriateness. |
| Protect Planning Time | Forces teachers to spend more time "internalizing" and scaffolding dense texts (like Across Five Aprils) just to make them accessible to all learners. |
The "One Work" Legal Minimum
Interestingly, Section 7 of HB 1605 only requires the SBOE to specify a list of required vocabulary and "at least one literary work" to be taught in each grade level.
While Buckley’s law only requires one work, TEA is using Stotsky’s outdated research to push for 19 works in 6th grade—effectively creating the very "overburdened" environment the law was supposed to fix.
The "At Least One" Solution
The Texas Education Agency is currently trying to sell the public on a 19-work required list for 6th grade by citing a 15-year-old study (Stotsky’s Forum 4) that was never designed for a general K-12 population. By their own math, they are asking teachers to perform the impossible.
TEA doesn’t have to do this.
Under the very law they are citing—House Bill 1605—the legal requirement is surprisingly simple:
"The State Board of Education shall specify a list of required vocabulary and at least one literary work to be taught in each grade level." (Texas Education Code §28.002(c-4))
The Choice Before the SBOE
The Legislature gave the SBOE the power to set a high bar by requiring one high-quality, shared literary anchor per year. This would:
Respect Teacher Time: Allow educators to actually meet the 2026 ELPS existing 2017 standards.
Ensure Depth Over Breadth: Let students truly master one great work rather than sprinting through 19.
Modernize the Approach: Move away from 2010 honors-level surveys and toward 2026 classroom realities.
Instead, the TEA has chosen to interpret "at least one" as "nineteen," anchoring the future of Texas literacy to a retired professor’s decade-old data. It’s time to stop the "Pile of DOO DOO" and return to a curriculum that fits within the actual minutes of a school day.
Key Legal Facts:
The Minimum: HB 1605 only mandates one work per grade.
The Pacing Protection: Section 8 of HB 1605 prohibits districts from penalizing teachers who don't follow a strict "pacing" schedule—meaning if a teacher takes the time to actually teach a book correctly, the state cannot punish them for being "behind".
The Stotsky Gap: Sandra Stotsky has been retired for 13 years; her "Forum 4" study was published when she was 77 and is being used to override the expertise of 2026 classroom teachers.
Contact your State Representatives and let them know what is happening. Contact your SBOE folks and say something like this:
Hey - This is so and so from your city/district. When you hear the required reading list read into the TAC, please reject the list and ask TEA staff to adhere to the "at least one work" minimum established by House Bill. Ask staff to recruit more teacher input for the final decision of each grade level test.
In addition, please consider the following information:
1. Mathematical Infeasibility: Kids can only read so fast. If we look at how fast they read at each grade level and how long each text takes to read, there aren't enough minutes in the YEAR to read the required texts in their entirety. This leaves the rest of the TEKS/STANDARDS/ELPS unaddressed.
2. Outdated and Irrelevant Research: TEA provided a document as research support that is not research, not scientific, and did not relate to the entire scope of K-12 education. Stotsky's 2010 Forum 4 was a commissioned paper that used old survey data about what high school honors students read in grades 9-12.
3. HB 1605's stated goals intended to avoid teacher burnout by providing curriculum materials. The list itself is not curriculum and creates an additional burden to teach texts that do not meet local needs and diverse populations, causing additional problems with engagement and struggling readers dealing with issues that are not consistent with a study over 15 years old or texts that were used for 19th century educational contexts.
The Solution: Please ask the agency to revise the current list. Ask them to consult teacher committees, guiding them to chose a single high-quality anchor text more in line with the author's intent in HB 1605.
Respectfully,
...
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