Publish Date: December 15, 2024 2:17 pm Author: Texas AFT
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Friday, Dec. 13, 2024
Common sense for the common good
This week, AFT President Randi Weingarten and her wife Sharon Kleinbaum, the Senior Rabbi Emerita of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York City, published an opinion piece in the Houston Chronicle.
“Instead of fomenting division and using government to push right-wing extremist Christian nationalism, our officials should work with parents and educators on common sense solutions to help all students. History and humanities, where teaching about religion could appropriately be taught, are important, but so are literacy, numeracy, critical thinking, problem-solving, resilience and relationship-building. That would require Texas to increase public school investment without strings attached.”
Funding public schools to meet students’ actual needs instead of incentivizing curriculum that will exclude or alienate so many of them – a radical notion.We’ll see how common sense fares in this legislative session.
In this week’s Hotline:
Where the Texas voucher fight stands
An update on bad bills already looming for next year
What to know about a flurry of Texas higher ed tuition news
Our recap of this month’s State Board for Educator Certification meeting
Following an aggressive campaign to reshape the Texas Legislature by supporting primary challenges against Republican state representatives who voted against taxpayer-funded private school vouchers in the last legislative session, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have both designated the passage of universal voucher legislation as their top priority next year and expressed confidence that they finally have the votes necessary to do so.
Union win: On Dec. 10, the Edinburg CISD Board of Trustees unanimously passed a resolution in support Texas AFT’s Educator’s Bill of Rights for the 89th Legislature. “We are losing educators left and right because of the Texas Legislature’s lack of meaningful action to support our public schools,” said Edinburg AFT President Marsha Gonzalez after the meeting. “That’s why we are glad ECISD trustees took this small but significant step to show their support for our educator community. They even discussed collaborating with our union to help pass these legislative priorities during the upcoming session.”
There’s no way to sugarcoat this: Texas public schools, colleges, and universities are under attack by extremist politicians and big-money donors. Even a month before the 89th Legislature begins, we are tracking bills that would restrict what teachers can teach, limit students’ access to library materials, and divert funding away from public schools.
The costs of attending college have doubled over the past 15 years, and many Texas students are finding postsecondary education well out of reach. A flurry of recent announcements on tuition prices have highlighted this crisis and point to differing approaches at the state and local levels.
The University of Texas at Austin currently estimates that 14,500 undergraduates benefit from the Texas Advance Commitment (TAC), an initiative that guarantees free tuition to students whose families have an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $65,000 or less. In a move that underscores the affordability crisis in higher education, UT Austin announced in November that it would expand the TAC to cover those with an AGI of up to $100,000. The university estimates this policy will benefit over 30,000 additional students.
And UT Austin is not alone, and addressing higher education affordability is not limited to four-year universities. This free tuition expansion follows Austin Community College’s decision earlier this year to offer free tuition for students in its service area.
The State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) met in Austin on Dec. 6.There were three items up for proposal that Texas AFT has been closely following for many months.
Texas AFT again delivered testimony in alignment with its partners at the Texas Coalition for Educator Preparation (TCEP) regarding the proposed revisions to the teacher pedagogy standards in 19 TAC Chapter 235. As presented to SBEC, the proposed standards contained revised language that reflects many of the requested changes stakeholders have been articulating since April 2024.
Education news from around the state and nation that’s worth your time.
📖 Editorial: As Abbott pushes private school vouchers, Texas public education suffers. The governor’s multi-year obsession with a private voucher program shows his education priorities. It’s too bad Abbott doesn’t have the same drive and enthusiasm to make sure his state’s public schools are adequately funded. (Longview News-Journal, Dec. 6)
📖 What do special education advocates anticipate from a 2nd Trump term?Special education administrators and advocates are bracing for changes in funding and programming under the incoming Trump administration. But they remain confident there’s widespread support for specialized services for students with disabilities, and that a federal role in special education will remain. (K-12 Dive, Dec. 9)
