December 14, 2018 Inside: Sign of the time: It's Winter Break! Congrats to our newest local union Save the date; March to the Capitol! Get PD credit over the holidays with Share My Lesson Hit the road with discounted car rentals Retired, but looking to be a part of a movement? About this newsletter Sign of the time There's nothing like seeing "Happy Holidays" on your school sign. From all of us at Texas AFT, we'd like to wish you a joyous Winter Break! A reminder that our offices will be closed from Tuesday, December 18, to Wednesday, January 2. Congrats to our newest local union The new PSJA AFT Executive Board Congratulations to our newest local union--PSJA AFT (serving Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD). Members unanimously...
School boards, school administrators, rank-and-file education employees, and educator organizations across Texas continue to call on Gov. Rick Perry to accept $830 million earmarked for Texas school districts by the recently enacted federal emergency-aid bill to save education jobs. As a September 9 deadline for requesting the funds from the...
Sen. Eddie Lucio, Democrat of Brownsville, is more than a little displeased with the Texas Education Agency, which has decided that a law Lucio wrote requiring new school buses to be equipped with seat belts cannot be implemented immediately and will not be backed by the full $10 million the...
Texas AFT Responds to Shortsighted Budget Cuts: Texas AFT President Linda Bridges put out a statement to the media today in response to the Texas Education Agency's just-released 2012-2013 budget request, which reflects instructions from Gov. Rick Perry and top legislative officials to cut 10 percent of all TEA spending...
During visits to two Dallas schools by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten yesterday, the theme was school-community teamwork–the need to take shared responsibility for strengthening public schools and ensuring all children get a high-quality education. School, community, and business and labor leaders–including AFT President Randi Weingarten, Dallas ISD...
Today marks the retirement of Texas AFT Secretary-Treasurer John O’Sullivan, who has helped Texas AFT grow to become the largest union in the state labor federation, the Texas AFL-CIO. O’Sullivan has effectively taught and exemplified the meaning of solidarity, knitting together diverse coalitions of school employees, community and parent activists,...
AFT President Visits Dallas ISD With Community-Partnership Message: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, is in Dallas today for meetings with community, business, union, and school leaders to stress the importance of taking shared responsibility to strengthen public schools and ensure all children get a quality education....
Even as the craze for judging teachers by their students’ standardized test scores reaches new heights, now comes a sharply worded report from a distinguished group of testing experts who all agree that test-driven teacher evaluation is a really bad...
Today state officials reportedly have been meeting in the nation’s capital with the U.S. Department of Education in a bid to secure $830 million earmarked for financially hard-pressed Texas school districts. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has until September 9 to apply for the aid under the Education Jobs Fund program...
News reports tell us that Texas education officials are en route to Washington, D.C., for discussions Friday with the U.S. Department of Education on how to secure $830 million in job-saving education aid for Texas school districts. The money is there for the asking, thanks to legislation passed by Congress...
Earlier this month the U.S. Department of Education held the first-ever National Summit on Bullying to draw attention to this all-too-common discipline problem. Now the feds have followed up with the launch of a new Web site, www.bullyinginfo.org, intended as a one-stop site for federal resources on bullying. In announcing...
Texas AFT's local affiliate in McAllen ISD has won a significant victory in a legal battle to get the district to give teachers their full 2009-2010 pay raise as required by state law. This week an administrative law judge with the Texas Education Agency ruled in McAllen AFT's favor, supporting...
The latest Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward Public Schools shows strong public support for a positive rather than punitive approach to improving school and teacher performance. A solid majority, 54 percent of those polled, said the best way to turn around low-performing schools is to keep...
