Charters face scrutiny at Capitol. Tell lawmakers we need a TIMEOUT for charter school expansion! Write your legislators now! Yes, charter schools have significant impacts on those of you teaching in public schools, and those negative impacts are growing with rampant expansion of charter chains across the state. Charters schools drain our public schools of resources (often millions of dollars lost), cost the state billions of dollars, are ripe for corruption and profiteering, and lack the transparency the public deserves for their tax dollars. Yesterday at the Capitol, the House Public Education Committee heard some 20 bills seeking more accountability, transparency and overall regulation of charter schools--including a bill that would require a real assessment of financial and logistical impacts to school districts when...
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...
Texas AFT legislative spokesman Ted Melina Raab called for "decent pensions and health care for all education employees, active and retired" in testimony at a state Legislative Budget Board hearing today. Melina Raab said Texas AFT supports the full spending request submitted by the Texas Teacher Retirement System, which seeks...
In May 2009 the Texas legislature passed a truth-in-grading law designed to strengthen teachers' grading authority by prohibiting district policies that required teachers to give students unearned "minimum grades." In June 2010, a state district judge in Austin rejected a court challenge to the law, agreed with Texas AFT, and...
Texas AFT has received notification that there will be no appeal by school districts from a June court decision upholding the state ban on local minimum-grade policies. Under these local policies, teachers have been required to give students grades no...
A new school year is set to start next week, and the Texas system of financing public education is in trouble. Outdated, inadequate, and inequitable state funding formulas have put an increasing burden on Texas school districts to take up...
