Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) put school library books back in the spotlight Wednesday, announcing that he plans to pursue legislation next session that would penalize school districts that fail to remove books that he says violate Senate Bill (SB) 13 by Sen. Angela Paxton (R–McKinney). Under the proposal, a district could lose an entire letter grade in the state’s A-F accountability system—meaning, for example, that a B-rated district could be dropped to a C rating if books deemed to violate the law remained on a library shelf. Patrick also raised the possibility of consequences involving loss of school funding, which is particularly concerning at a time when districts are adopting deficit budgets and closing and consolidating campuses.  

SB 13, passed in 2025, significantly changed the way school districts handle library materials. Among other requirements, districts must have policies and procedures for parents to access library catalogs, control what their own children can access in the school’s library, and challenge library materials. The law also gives school boards a larger role in approving library materials before they hit the shelves. 

One important distinction to keep in mind when considering Patrick’s proposal is how the challenge process works. SB 13 allows a parent, district employee, or district resident to submit a written challenge to a library material. When a challenge is received, the district has a process for reviewing and responding to it. In other words, the law creates a mechanism for addressing concerns once they are raised, but it does not require a district to remove a book simply because someone somewhere has objected to it. This matters when examining Patrick’s claim that many districts are not complying with SB 13. If a district has received no challenge to a particular book, there is no challenge for the district to act on. Districts still have other responsibilities under the law, including board review of new library materials, but the absence of a challenge is not, by itself, evidence that a district has failed to respond to one. 

The most significant concern for school districts may be the threat posed by Patrick regarding the A-F accountability system. Texas’ A-F system is designed to measure district and campus performances using academic measures related to student achievement, school progress, and college, career, and military readiness, among other factors. Districts can be taken over by the state for failure to meet accountability requirements. The public is meant to take this system seriously. If an accountability grade is supposed to tell parents and the public how well a district’s students are performing academically, adding a penalty unrelated to student achievement raises an obvious question: What would that grade actually be measuring? 

A district could potentially have the same academic performance as another district but receive a lower A-F grade because of a dispute over a library book. That would make the grade less useful as a measure of student achievement and could make comparisons between districts more difficult. It could also have consequences beyond the letter on a report card because low accountability ratings can play a role in state intervention and takeovers. Obviously, if the goal is to accurately measure how our schools and our students are doing, this is not a threat that should be made. Lawmakers should consider the long-term consequences of such a threat as they examine Patrick’s proposal next session.