Feb. 21, 2025: ‘The Votes Are Not There’

Publish Date: February 23, 2025 12:33 pm
Author: Texas AFT


Header reads: Texas A-F-T. The Hotline.

Friday, Feb. 21, 2025



‘The Votes Are Not There’ 

In case you missed it, we were joined by Rep. Aicha Davis for last night’s Organizing Texas meeting. Davis was able to boost morale during these … constantly upsetting times. Watch the full recording here. 

Of the bigger points she made was that from her perspective, pro-voucher legislators do not currently have enough votes to pass vouchers on their own. This is our opportunity. The lawmakers on the fence need to hear our perspective on public education. They need to be told the truth about billionaire-backed vouchers and ESAs that would drain billions of taxpayer dollars from our public schools and redirect them to unaccountable private schools. These proposed voucher scams would further jeopardize the budgets of struggling school districts across the state resulting in even more school closures.  



Sharing your voice in legislative hearings will be all the more important. Learn the ropes of testifying at our upcoming Testifier Training on Monday, March 3 at 4:30 p.m. Click here to RSVP. 


In this week’s Hotline: 

  • Three new bills to watch from the Texas House

  • Join us March 4 for information on the possible dismantling of the Dept. Of Ed. 

  • Three new items adopted in the SBEC

  • A deep drive into how essential money is in education


— Texas Legislature


The Texas House made news last week with a new slate of committee assignments that will determine the fate of the Educator’s Bill of Rights and other critical education policies, including school finance, teacher and school staff pay, and private school vouchers (ESAs). This week, House Public Education Committee Chair Brad Buckley (R-Salado) dropped three major pieces of legislation that will affect educators: HB 2 on school finance and educator pay, HB 3 on private school vouchers, and HB 4 on accountability and testing.  



— Event



Virtual March 4 Town Hall 

Date: Tuesday, March 4 

Time: 6:00 p.m.  

As news of an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education looms, parents, students, and staff are left in limbo. Join us on March 4 at 6 pm on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram to understand what the chaos at the DOE could mean for our schools. RSVP for the livestream online!


— State Board for Educator Certification


All three chapters of rules were adopted and will go before the State Board of Education (SBOE) at the April meeting for final approval. 



—Report


A new report from the Albert Shanker Institute, “Does Money Matter in Education?” confirms what educators have long known: money matters in education, and even more so for students in underfunded communities. The study, a comprehensive review of decades of research, finds that increased investment in schools leads to better student outcomes, while funding cuts harm them.




Recommended Reading

Education news from around the state and nation that’s worth your time.

📖 Gov. Abbott asks TEA to investigate Bellaire High School for allegedly socially ‘transitioning’ student 

Gov. Greg Abbott has asked the Texas Education Agency to investigate after a local Moms for Liberty chapter alleged that teachers at a Houston ISD high school have been using students’ chosen names and pronouns in class. There are currently no policies in Texas against calling students by their preferred pronouns or name. (Houston Chronicle, Feb. 17) 

 

📖Texas Education Agency replaces superintendent, elected board at South San Antonio ISD 

The elected South San board of trustees has been overseen by state monitors and conservators off and on for years, but now TEA has completely taken away their ability to make decisions for the district and placed control in the hands of an appointed board of managers. The district was previously under the oversight of a conservator from 2016 to 2018. (Texas Public Radio, Feb. 19) 

 

📖 New Texas teacher pay bill proposes increasing certain salaries by as much as $10,000

Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe) filed Senate Bill 26 on Tuesday. Brandon Enos, the superintendent of Cushing ISD, said teachers definitely need raises, but he would prefer to see lawmakers increase the basic allotment. Similar to Enos, Chandra Kring Villanueva said she is concerned about creating a new allotment for teacher raises, rather than increasing the basic allotment. She said offering across-the-board raises does not take into account the specifics of each school district. 



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