Our work in the 88th Legislature is to do what we do best — educate — on the issues that matter most to our public school employees and students.
Polls show that Texans overwhelmingly support raising teacher pay, and public school parents nationwide are incredibly concerned about underfunded and unsafe schools, staffing shortages, and their child’s ability to get individualized attention.
Meanwhile, our state’s conversation has shifted, with more full-throated support for respect in retired educators’ paychecks and putting public money where it ought to go: our neighborhood schools.
It’s clear that our union’s Respect Agenda for the Texas Legislature — with calls for teacher and staff pay raises, closing class size loopholes, increasing state funding for schools, and giving retirees a permanent COLA — is a unifying agenda.
Get the Respect Agenda
Our legislative agenda is always online at respect.texasaft.org, but you can also have it on hand any time by downloading a copy.
The Basics of Public Education Issues
We’ve gathered need-to-know information on the issues our members told us matter most on our website, and we’re sharing this information with legislators too. Learn more about any of these topics here:
- Charter Schools
- Classroom Censorship
- Districts of Innovation
- Educator Preparation
- Food Deserts
- Higher Education Issues
- Issues with Texas Education Data
- LGBTQIA+ Rights
- Public Education Funding (the Basic Allotment)
- Recapture
- Retirement Security
- School Nurse Notification
- School Safety & Gun Violence
- School Vouchers
- Standardized Testing
- TEA Commissioner Powers
Join Our Fight: If you’re a Texas school employee (K-12 or higher ed!), we invite you to join our union & the fight to pass our Respect Agenda. Join online today.