Publish Date: May 12, 2025 2:29 pm Author: Texas AFT
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Friday, May 9, 2025
We carry on.
Veteran teachers roaming the halls of the Capitol, asking lawmakers to fund their schools and to focus on bills that would help their students instead of harm them.
School librarians cut off from testifying against a book-banning bill at 3:30 a.m. but waiting to speak to lawmakers in the hallway anyway.
An army of professors seated on the floor in a committee room, arriving at the Capitol before 9 a.m. only to leave after dawn the next day.
And Texas AAUP-AFT President Dr. Brian Evans (pictured), grading his students’ finals in a committee hearing, well after midnight, waiting to testify against a bill that would destroy Texas colleges and universities.
These were the images of Teacher Appreciation Week at the Texas Legislature, as consequential hearings for pre-K-12 and higher education went deep into the night with little positive to show for the effort and expense. So goes the new normal in this Texas political environment.
We can do better. We should expect better. We demand better. We continue to fight for better. We invite all employees in Texas public schools, colleges, and universities to join us in doing the same.
In this week’s Hotline:
Frivolity in the House & funding concerns in the Senate
Higher education’s “Death Star bill”
Great news from May 3 school board races!
A-F: Charter schools vs. Public schools
— Texas Legislature
Just before Gov. Greg Abbott’s signing ceremony, down the street from the governor’s mansion, parents, educators, and students gathered at the Texas AFL-CIO on Saturday to send a message of their own.
Against the will of Texans, Senate Bill 2, a universal voucher, will go into effect Sept. 1, with the program itself expected to launch in late 2026. It was a good day for Jeff Yass, the richest man in Pennsylvania who donated millions to the governor’s quest, and he attended the signing ceremony to celebrate the return on his investment.
Unfortunately, Saturday was the “latest in a series of damn sad days for Texas public schools,” as Texas AFT President Zeph Capo said in a statement Saturday.
The Texas House Public Education Committee held a hearing into the wee hours of Wednesday on a lineup of bills that speaks volumes about the misplaced priorities of this Legislature. The agenda included several bills that are worrisome for all public school employees.
The Senate Education K-16 Committee held a formal meeting on Tuesday to vote on pending business, where several bills related to tuition in higher education were voted out of committee, including the cruel repeal of the Texas Dream Act.
Most weeks in the Legislature are a mix of celebrations and losses. As the House faces a major deadline next Friday and the Senate continues its blistering pace, we’ve rounded up bills moving through each chamber that you should know about.
🔗Take Action: With less than 30 days left in this legislative session, no public school funding package has made it through both chambers of the Legislature. https://bit.ly/MoveHB2
Senate Bill 37, the “Death Star” bill for Texas colleges and universities, had its last public hearing this past Tuesday (May 6). Our higher education members and community advocates came out in droves, from all over Texas, to testify against a bill that would overhaul our higher education system.
This past Saturday (May 3), voters across Texas sent a powerful message: public schools should be focused on education, not pushing privatization or political interference. In a major victory for pro-public education advocates, community-minded candidates triumphed over far-right challengers and billionaire-backed charter school interests in multiple school board races, despite an influx of outside money aiming to reshape Texas public education.
Money-starved schools. School employee layoffs. Student program cuts. Educators heading for the exits.
That’s the reality right now for Texas public schools and the 5 million+ kids they serve. And that’s the backdrop for the 89th Legislature.
Join Texas AFT for a special May Day edition of our livestream legislative updates as we report back to you what’s happening at the Capitol, what it means for your school, and what you can do to advocate for yourself, your kids, and your community.
Summer is right around the corner (as you’re surely aware)! Before you head out, get updates on the current state of the Legislature and how it relates to our efforts as a union in this virtual session.
A guest post from Maggie Stern with Our Schools Our Democracy (OSOD) asks an important question: TEA fought for months to release 2022-2023 school accountability ratings. So why isn’t the state holding charter schools accountable for consistently poor scores?
In a bit of good news, there is a bill that would address the lack of accountability and transparency for publicly funded charter schools: House Bill 5571 by Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond, two cases when taken together that could upend the separation of church and state and profoundly undercut public education across the country.
As seismic as this ruling could be for public education, it is only one worrisome development at the federal level: Now, there is growing support among congressional Republicans for the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), a national voucher scam.
📖 Stop Trying to Make Everyone Go to College.As AFT President Randi Weingarten writes in this guest essay: “While college completion has positive effects … it’s increasingly clear that college for all should no longer be our North Star. It’s time to scale up successful programs that create multiple pathways for students, so high school is a gateway to both college and career.” (The New York Times, May 6)
📖 Lawmakers want to expand Texas’ teacher pay raise program. Many educators will still be left out.The Teacher Incentive Allotment program’s merit-based structure means not everyone benefits. Only about 25,000 teachers — out of nearly 400,000 in Texas — currently receive pay raises under the initiative. Less than half of more than 1,200 districts participate. (The Texas Tribune, May 6)
📖 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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