Dear Friends, When the Texas Legislature first met at the beginning of January, there was much talk about how public school funding would be the order of the day and the priority for the legislative session. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, eager to fulfill his campaign promise to give teachers a $10,000 pay raise (remember the pickup truck?) announced a bill to give teachers a $5,000 pay raise. Not to be outdone, newly-elected Texas Speaker of the House Dennis Bonnen announced a preliminary House budget that would increase public education spending by over $7 billion and handed out styrofoam cups to members of the House that read: “School Finance Reform, The Time Is Now.” The results of last year’s elections had apparently moved the legislative agenda...
The Texas AFT School Nurse Task Force, chaired by Starla Reichek of the Houston Federation of Teachers, will convene in Austin on November 6 to plan ahead for the 2011 legislative session. High on the list of school nurses’ concerns will be inadequate nurse staffing at many Texas public schools....
Yesterday’s call by retired Texas AFT members in Dallas for a genuinely independent, impartial investigation of alleged political influence over the investment of their Texas Teacher Retirement System pension fund has set off media reverberations statewide. In Austin, the main...
Retired school employees drawing pensions from the Texas Teacher Retirement System gathered in Dallas today to call for a thorough and credible investigation into recently disclosed charges by a TRS whistleblower, who said pension-fund managers and trustees have made investment...
The latest issue (http://docs.texasaft.org/publications/TTOct10.pdf) of Texas AFT’s main quarterly publication features a full menu of politics and policy news. In the October Texas Teacher you’ll find a report on the issues that divide the main candidates for governor and lieutenant governor. You’ll also see links to a lot more information...
If you still need a reason to vote in the governor’s race, we invite you to consider the possible consequences of sitting this one out. Here’s a pertinent excerpt from a new article in Texas Monthly magazine about Gov. Rick Perry’s aspirations beyond the governorship: "Perry is positioning himself for...
Election day on November 2 is just around the corner. The early-vote period has already started and runs through Friday, October 29, so avoid the long lines and vote early. Check with your local county clerk's office for early-vote sites, and on Tuesday, November 2, vote at your usual polling...
The current wave of teacher-bashing may not have crested yet, but it has evoked a strong countercurrent of well-argued rebuttals from leading educators and education researchers. The latest case in point is the response to a recent "manifesto" published in the Washington Post on behalf of the superintendents of 16...
Allegations of serious improprieties by Teacher Retirement System trustees and the top TRS investment officer have come to light with the publication today of a whistleblower memo written by a key official in the TRS investment division. The April 2009 memo from Michael Green, at the time TRS director of...
Twelve days of early voting will run from today through October 29 in the general election that culminates with 12 hours of voting on Tuesday, November 2. We urge you to take advantage of the convenient early-voting period to support candidates who will work to build up public education and...
The well-respected Texas Poll has come out today with some timely information politicians should heed regarding public attitudes toward public schools. The independent poll, commissioned by the Texas Association of School Boards and conducted in July of this year, tells...
From time to time we spot a car with a bumper sticker that says: "It’s too bad the people who really know how to run the country are all too busy teaching school." We tend to agree that teachers and other school employees have a pretty good handle on what...
At two interim committee meetings this week in the Texas legislature, lawmakers rehearsed for debates to come in the 2011 session over bilingual education and school finance. Today’s Hotline will focus on the debate over bilingual education; an upcoming Hotline will consider the preview we obtained this week of lawmakers’...
