Topic: State Board of Education

House Public Education Committee Hears Interim Charges 

Legislative “Interim Charges”: What Are They and Why Do They Matter? The Texas Legislature meets once every two years for 140 days for its regular legislative session, during which the only bill it is required to pass and send to the governor’s desk to be signed into law is the budget for the next biennium.   We became all too familiar...

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AFT Convention 2024: Progress Is Possible, Not Guaranteed  

Top: AFT convention delegates and guests listen to Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday, July 25. Photo by Marco Guajardo, Texas AFT. Bottom: Scenes from the four days of convention programming at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston. Photos by Mariana Krueger, CCR Studios.   This past week, Texas AFT welcomed the 88th biennial national AFT Convention to Houston....

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“Broken Promises’: A Chronicle of Charter School Failures 

Given the recent approvals of four new charter schools by the State Board of Education this summer, we want to revisit the important research that has informed Texas AFT’s continued insistence on a charter school moratorium in this state.   First, let’s start with the national education policy think tank Network for Public Education (NPE), which has released many relevant...

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Texas Democrats Unite to Defend Public Education at 2024 State Convention 

This past weekend, Texas Democrats gathered in El Paso for their 2024 state convention, and the tone could not have been more different from the Texas GOP Convention held in San Antonio in late May.   As speaker after speaker took the stage, one issue resonated above all others: the urgent need to protect public education from Republican attacks. Democrats were...

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