July 11, 2025: Who’s on the side of working Texans?
Publish Date: July 15, 2025 2:37 pm Author: Texas AFT
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Friday, July 11, 2025
Who’s on the side of working Texans?
Earlier this week — a week of tragedy for so many Texas families — the Texas AFL-CIO officially released its Pro-Worker Scorecard for our state representatives and senators.
This is BIG NEWS. By making this data publicly available, our labor family is giving Texans the information they need to evaluate lawmakers and hold them accountable on the issues that really matter.
Texas AFT members at our 2025 Public Education Advocacy Day at the Capitol. One Socorro AFT member holds a sign with one of the 10 essential rights in our Educator’s Bill of Rights: the right to secure retirement.
Texas educators deserve better than broken promises and one-time checks. Despite a historic push for pension reform this legislative session, the 89th Legislature failed to pass meaningful, educator-focused retirement legislation. The only pension-related bill to make it across the finish line – Senate Bill 667 – was a narrow technical fix unrelated to the core issue facing retired educators: the rising cost of living.
That leaves retired school employees living on an average monthly Teacher Retirement System (TRS) benefit of just $2,199 — with no guarantee that amount will ever increase. As you’ll recall, voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 9in 2023, delivering the first statewide cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in nearly two decades.But one-time relief isn’t enough. It was never designed to solve the larger problem of Texas still lacking automatic, annual pension increases tied to inflation. This must change.
One of the young attendees at a rally outside of Sen. Ted Cruz’s Dallas office with Texas AFT and AFGE Local 252 in June 2025. Photo by Brooke Jonsson, CCR Studios.
While educators across Texas are making plans for the new school year, big moves in Washington, D.C., are threatening the foundation of public education — and putting our students, our profession, and our funding on the line. Online we break down:
The “Big Beautiful Bill” — Not So Pretty for Public Schools
Over the past week, Central Texas has been devastated by historic flooding that has left more than 100 people dead, including at least 28 children. Some of the worst damage has been concentrated in Kerr County, where floodwaters overwhelmed communities with terrifying speed. Heavy rainfall, up to 20 inches in some areas, caused rivers like the Guadalupe to rise more than 25 feet in under an hour. Rescue efforts continue, but officials warn that more rain is expected in the coming days.
Communities across the Hill Country are now navigating the aftermath: collapsed homes, impassable roads, power outages, and missing loved ones. In the wake of this devastation, local organizations, national nonprofits, and everyday Texans have stepped up to provide emergency assistance and support.
It’s been less than a month since the Texas Education Agency announced a two-year extension of the Houston ISD takeover by Commissioner Mike Morath’s appointed board of managers and Superintendent Mike Miles. If readers were hoping that was the exclamation point on the 2024-2025 school year, think again.
Signs from the No More Harm rally at the 2024 AFT Convention in Houston. Photo by Mariana Krueger, CCR Studios.
— All in for Public Schools
Give Them 5:In Hidalgo ISD, members of Texas AFT’s Associate Membership Program have shown up and stood up in a campaign for real, permanent pay raises from their school board. They’ve asked for $5,000 raises for salaried staff and 5% raises for hourly employees. “By adopting our union’s recommendation, you have the opportunity to not only retain and respect your employees, but to send a clear message the Valley: Hidalgo ISD is #Allin for its employees and all in for its students,” RGV AFT member Alex Perez told the board at its June 30 meeting.
Recommended Reading
Education news from around the state and nation that’s worth your time.
📖‘Free money’ is popular but never really free. For the upcoming school year, all parents in Arkansas qualify for about $6,800 in state subsidies for private school tuition or homeschool expenses. So not surprisingly,45,500 applicants have stepped up to the trough, blowing through not only the $187 million legislators appropriated for the program, but another $90 million in reserve funds. (Arkansas Advocate, July 7)
📖 The Lege’s ‘Big Government Intrusion’ into University Academics. Expanding on last session’s anti-DEI campus crackdown, some Republicans in the Legislature are now going after gender and ethnic studies programs and faculty independence. (Texas Observer, April 24)
🎧 The Shocking Billionaire Plot to Dismantle Public Education. Texas is on the verge of passing a law that could defund public education. Vouchers send public taxpayer dollars to private schools. It could cost taxpayers $10 billion by 2030. And it could destroy Friday Night Lights. (More Perfect Union, April 22)
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