Publish Date: June 29, 2025 3:13 pm Author: Texas AFT
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Friday, June 27, 2025
We’reAll In.
If there is one message you retained from our 2025 Biennial Convention, it is that our fight isn’tover;it’s just getting started. As many of our speakers pointed out, the forces we’re up against have strength that only money can buy.
What is our union strength? Us.
Now more than ever, we must stand together and stand strong against those who wish to keep us down. Which is what led us to our new campaign: All in for Public Schools. This means more than just teachers, custodians, and paraprofessionals working together. It’s our families, friends, and community members standing with us too.
Educators: take your needed break this summer but come fall we’ve got work to do!
Texas AFT 2025 Biennial Convention: All in for Public Schools
The Texas AFT 2025 Biennial Convention in Dallas brought members, delegates, and staff together for a weekend of action, awards, learning, and fun! The festivities kicked off with a march to Senator Ted Cruz’s downtown office to oppose his federal voucher legislation. You can view the rally here, including the moment when our two selected delegates were denied entry into the building (how’s that for listening to your constituents?)
The Texas Education Agency released its Spring 2025 STAAR results last week, and the numbers tell a familiar story: students are making gains in reading, while math proficiency continues to lag. According to the Texas Tribune, reading and language arts scores across grades three through eight have now exceeded pre-pandemic levels. That success is no coincidence.It’sthe result of years of hard work by educators and long-overdue investments in early literacy, including full-day Pre-K and Reading Academies, which public school advocates and unions like Texas AFT fought to make happen.
The AFT and CareerWise’s new Education and Apprenticeship Accelerator, backed by six states and industry leaders, reflects a national movement toward earn‑and‑learn pathways that directly address classroom workforce challenges. These high‑school apprenticeship models bridge career and technical education (CTE) with tangible pathways into fields like cybersecurity, welding, and microchip manufacturing, and are designed to retain talent both in‑school and beyond.
In Texas, Gov. Abbott made “expanding career training” one of his emergency items this session, and the Legislature responded. Lawmakers have expanded equipment grants and the CTE program. However, unlike the Accelerator’s work in states like Colorado and Pennsylvania, Texas failed to build the coordinated, student-centered apprenticeship infrastructure that prepares young people for success. There’s no statewide vision here; it’s just disconnected grants and a talking point.
The Texas Tribune spoke to four students who were brought into the country when they were young and are weighing what last week’s ruling means for their college plans. The students said they had been on high alert for months, fearing that the Texas Dream Actwould be repealed this year as anti-immigrant rhetoric soared with the start of a new Trump administration. (Texas Tribune, June 14)
Texas lawmakers this year added $10`0 million to a scholarship fund to help families across the state pay for early childcare, an extraordinary investment that may ease a waitlist to help thousands of children. However, advocates say legislators fell short in creating more opportunities for the state’s youngest living with disabilities. (Texas Tribune, June 23)
Abbott vetoed 26 bills Sunday — from one that would have banned the sale of virtually all hemp products containing THC, to another that would have created a multistate cosmetology licensing program. Some of the proposed laws rejected by Abbott will be the focus of a special legislative session he has called for July 21. (Houston Public Media, June 23)
📖 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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