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This Week in the Legislature: Budgets on the Move, Alongside Gov. Abbott’s Voucher Scam
Texas Budget Update: Public & Higher Education in Focus This week, both chambers of the Texas Legislature advanced major budget proposals, with public and higher education taking center stage. The Texas Senate unanimously passed a $336 billion budget for the 2026–27 biennium. The proposal includes $71 billion for the Foundation School Program, the main source of pre-K-12 public education funding,...
Read MoreUnpacking the 88th Legislature: School Employee Raises
The legislative session began with a $32.7 billion budget surplus, record-breaking staff turnover, and a TEA Teacher Vacancy Task Force report that directly pointed to educator raises as a necessary strategy to keep educators in the classroom. Yet the legislative session ended with $0 in guaranteed raises for educators.
Read MoreSpecial Session Update: Senate Treads Water After House Adjourns
Last week, the day after the regular session of the Texas Legislature ended, Gov. Greg Abbott promptly called legislators back for a special session to deal with property tax cuts and border security. The Texas House promptly passed a property tax cut bill and a border security bill, and adjourned...
Read MoreFirst Week of TEA’s Takeover of Houston ISD, in Review
Houston Federation of Teachers President Jackie Anderson speaks at a community protest prior to the board meeting. On Thursday, June 8, the Texas Education Agency’s hand-picked board of managers, which replaces Houston ISD’s democratically elected school board, met for the first time. Before the meeting, members of the board of...
Read MoreJune 2, 2023: Schools aren’t failing. Our state is.
Friday, June 2, 2023 You made a difference this session We are sorting through the results of this legislative session, and we’ll be recapping each key part of our Respect Agenda and how it fared in the Hotline throughout the summer. But to start things off, we wanted to take...
Read MoreEasy Come, Easy Go: The Legislative Session that Just Won’t End
This week we said “goodbye” to the 88th regular session … and then, just a few hours later, said “hello” to the first special session of the 88th Legislature. In this week’s Hotline, we recap the end of the regular session, provide an update on the first (of “several”) special...
Read MoreBy the Numbers: the 88th Legislature
$0 The amount of raises the Legislature passed for teacher and school staff raises 0 The number of bills to limit class sizes or reduce educator workloads that received a committee hearing 28 cents per student The amount of new money the Legislature invested in school safety in HB 3...
Read MoreTEA wants to move the A-F goalposts for districts. In Houston ISD, we see the results.
Yesterday, the Texas Education Agency announced its takeover of HISD, ousting a democratically elected board and installing a selected board of managers, including charter CEO Mike Miles (more on that below). Despite great academic progress made in the last year, and an overall acceptable rating in 2023, TEA chose to...
Read MoreTexas AFT’s Phyllis Ruffin Elected As Top 3 Finalist for TRS Board of Trustees
Phyllis Ruffin speaks at an April press conference at the Capitol with fellow Texas AFT Retiree Plus members, as well as Rep. John Bryant and Rep. Mihaela Plesa, about the need for a real COLA for retired educators. This week, Texas AFT retiree Phyllis Ruffin was selected as a finalist...
Read MoreMay 26, 2023: A Hostage Situation
Friday, May 26, 2023 Is this a joke? There are three days left in the regular session of the 88th Texas Legislature. And as of this writing, there are $0 dedicated in the proposed final state budget for public school employee raises. After more than a month of negotiations in...
Read MoreThis (Last) Week in The Legislature: More Questions Than Answers as Session Comes to a Close
The last full week of the Texas legislative session ended with final decisions being made on several important pieces of legislation, but going into the session’s final weekend, major bills relating to school finance, private school vouchers, pensions for retired educators, the future of higher education, and more are still...
Read MoreHouse Committee Unanimously Recommends Paxton Impeachment
This Thursday, the Texas House General Investigating Committee recommended that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton be impeached due to a plethora of abuses he is alleged to have committed while in office. The committee filed a total of 20 articles of impeachment against Paxton, ranging from obstruction of justice to...
Read MoreStatement on State Budget HB 1
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 25, 2023 CONTACT: press@texasaft.org Texas AFT President Zeph Capo commented Thursday on House Bill 1, the state budget, which, after negotiations in conference committee, contains no increase to the basic allotment for students and no raises for public school employees: “Is this a joke? Congratulations to...
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