Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 2171 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate $1,800,000 for the Department of Education to purchase more new and recently published textbooks, in order to update the textbooks periodically and to provide a sufficient number of textbooks for every student enrolled in the public schools.

Your Committee received testimony in support of the measure from the Department of Education and Hawaii State Teachers Association.

Your Committee finds that this measure will help to ensure that all public school students will have the textbook resources for mastering the Hawaii Content and Performance Standards to enable them to compete in a global society. Students will also benefit by having each school's curriculum, as embodied in textbooks, aligned throughout the school complex so that they may have a smooth and productive transition between grades and schools.

Your Committee has amended the measure by requiring a school's textbooks and curriculum to be aligned throughout the school complex.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Education that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2171, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2171, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.