State Board of Education adopts new instructional-materials review rules, orders reviewer split and process changes

The State Board of Education’s committee of the full board voted to adopt new rule text for 19 TAC chapter 67 on Jan. 28, approving procedures that put the agency’s Instructional Materials Review and Approval (IMRA) process into rule for the 2025 cycle.

The board’s action formalizes a multi-part review process developed and run by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), establishes separate reviewer roles for quality and suitability, and directs staff to improve publisher notice, appeals timing and member-facing reporting tools before the next review cycle.

Why this matters: the rule package implements the statutory IMRA framework adopted after House Bill 1605 and governs how publishers’ instructional materials are evaluated for alignment to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and other standards. The changes affect which materials districts may adopt and how publishers must document alignment and respond to reviewer findings.

Colin Dempsey, Director of District Operations, Technology, and Sustainability Supports at the Texas Education Agency, told the board the IMRA process has four parts — rubrics, material selection, reviewer selection and EMRA reviews — and that the part of the report before the committee covers the review work and reports that informed members’ November 2024 vote. “We kicked off officially with reviewers on 05/17/2024, and worked through the review process,” Dempsey said, describing the timeline and how publishers were allowed to respond when reviewers rejected alignment citations.

The agency told the board it used a 75% TEKS‑coverage threshold this cycle: publishers whose materials did not meet 75% of required student expectations on initial alignment were removed from further alignment work in order to conserve reviewer time. Publishers could submit up to eight citations when asked to supply more…