Education News

October 14, 2025

Harrison v higher ed: How one lawmaker is weaponizing social media to eradicate LGBTQ+ curriculum

A few days after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, a video was posted on social media of a Texas State University student mockingly re-enacting the conservative activist’s death.

Rep. Brian Harrison saw the video and got to work.

He pulled up the university’s online course catalog and found a class called LGBTQ+ Communication Studies, where students were to learn about how “communication sustains both discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and their resistance,” according to the course description.

Within the hour, Harrison shared the video of the student on his X account alongside the image of the offending course description.

“Despicable!” the Midlothian Republican wrote in his post to his 86,000 followers. “WORSE… I just found out that Texas State University is literally indoctrinating students in TRANSGENDER ‘RESISTANCE’ and TRANSGENDER ‘JUSTICE!’ Why are @GregAbbott_TX’s Regents at @txst allowing this!!??”

After sparking the online outrage with his post, Harrison appeared on Steve Bannon’s show later that day to fan the flames, railing against the San Marcos-based university for offering the course. Shortly after, Texas Scorecard, a conservative website followed by many state legislators, wrote about Harrison’s efforts, naming the professor and further dissecting her syllabus.

Texas State removed the course from its catalog the day after Harrison’s post. It’s unclear if the course is permanently removed. The university refused to explain its decision and the professor did not respond to requests for comment.

This chain of events has become a standard playbook for the North Texas lawmaker, who is increasingly seeking to make an impact through his prolific social media posts over his work in the Legislature.

October 13, 2025

Amid shutdown, Trump administration guts department overseeing special education

Sweeping layoffs announced Friday by the Trump administration landed another body blow to the US Department of Education, this time gutting the office responsible for overseeing special education, according to multiple sources within the department.

The reduction-in-force, or RIF, affects the dozens of staff responsible for roughly $15 billion dollars in special education funding, and for making sure states provide special education services to the nation’s 7.5 million children with disabilities.

“This is decimating the office responsible for safeguarding the rights of infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities,” said one department employee, who, like the others NPR spoke with, requested anonymity for fear of retribution.

According to sources, all staff in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), with the exception of a handful of top officials and support staff, were cut in Friday’s RIF. The office is the central nervous system for programs that support students with disabilities, not only offering guidance to families but providing monitoring and oversight of states to make sure they’re complying with the landmark Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

The layoffs at the Education Department, 466 in total, were part of broader cuts – some 4,200 jobs – announced by government lawyers in a court filing on Friday as the shutdown continues.

At the Education Department, it’s not clear precisely how many workers in the special education office were cut. Department officials did not respond to NPR’s requests for clarity or comment.

“Based on multiple reports from staff and their managers, we believe that all remaining staff in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), including the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the Rehabilitative Services Administration (RSA), have been illegally fired,” said Rachel Gittleman, president of AFGE Local 252, a union that represents many Education Department employees.

“The harm these cuts will cause for the 7.5 million students with disabilities across the country is only beginning,” Gittelman added.

Employees who received a notice Friday were told they would remain employed until Dec. 9.

October 12, 2025

More Texas kindergarteners are coming to school without measles vaccination proof or exemptions

Before the pandemic helped fuel the growth of vaccine politicization across the country, less than 1% of Austin school district’s kindergarteners in the fall of 2019 failed to comply with the state’s vaccine reporting requirements.

Five years later, Austin ISD had some of the state’s highest number of kindergarteners who neglected those state requirements — about 1 in 5 kindergarteners had not proven they were fully vaccinated against measles and did not file an exemption.

A Texas Tribune analysis has found that this explosion of vaccine non-compliance has played out across many school districts in the state in recent years, helping to push Texas’ measles vaccine coverage to the lowest it’s been since at least 2011.

“We definitely were on a better trajectory [before the pandemic],” said Alana Bejarano, executive director of health services and nursing for the Austin school district, which reported a 23% delinquency rate for the measles vaccines among their kindergarteners.

October 9, 2025

Some Texas community colleges remove course materials amid broader push to limit gender identity discussions

Some Texas community colleges have ordered thorough course reviews and put restrictions on what faculty can teach, with at least two schools pointing to state laws they believe apply to high schoolers in their fast-growing dual credit programs.

Why the course reviews? They’re part of a political firestorm rippling through higher education institutions across the state. University systems began ordering their own reviews after a viral video of a gender identity discussion in a Texas A&M class led to a professor’s firing and the university president’s resignation last month. Angelo State University banned its professors from mentioning transgender and nonbinary identities, citing a need to align with a federal executive order, a gubernatorial letter and a state law that recognizes only two sexes.

Where else is this playing out? The Texas Tribune spoke with several faculty at three community colleges — Alvin Community College, Blinn College and San Jacinto College — who said their schools’ orders have led them to pull content from their courses.

At Alvin, located south of Houston, school officials told instructors not to discuss gender identity or homosexuality in their dual credit courses and not to use transgender or nonbinary students’ preferred pronouns or names.

Blinn College in Central Texas ordered faculty to review their courses to ensure their dual credit material complies with a state law that bans “obscene” material for minors. But professors say school officials have not given them guidance on what is considered “obscene” or whether they expect them to limit discussions of gender identity.

At San Jacinto College near Houston, deans held small, private meetings to inform departments that course content could not refer to gender beyond the male and female binary.

How have colleges been impacted? Lack of guidance has left faculty at some colleges confused and fearful of what they can and can’t say. And with the number of high school students enrolling in college-level classes ballooning in recent years, faculty members at Alvin and Blinn said it’s difficult to identify which of their classes have minors. That means faculty have had to conduct course reviews for nearly all their courses, they said.

October 8, 2025

One third of Texas school districts ordered Bible-infused lesson plans; is your school on the list?

Just under one-third of all Texas school districts have ordered the controversial Bible-infused Bluebonnet materials, according to the Texas Education Agency.

Twenty of those 367 districts are in the Houston area, and 30 more are in the Huntsville and Beaumont area, although the majority of the districts that ordered the materials are located in the Tyler area, with 35 districts in that area opting in. Amarillo and Victoria were next after Kilgore. In the Dallas-Forth Worth region, however, only 10 traditional and charter districts purchased the materials. While not included on the list for this year, Fort Worth ISD’s board recently voted to approve the reading materials for use in the next school year, according to news reports.

Bluebonnet Reading and Language Arts materials are part of the Texas Education Agency’s program of open education resource materials, which the agency was tasked to create by the legislature in 2023.

UT students say ‘Campus Protection Act’ continues to limit free speech

A new state law that regulates who can speak at public universities is changing how UT student organizations operate, and it’s raising concerns about free speech.

The law, dubbed the “Campus Protection Act,” requires student groups to get permission from university officials before inviting guest speakers to campus.

Members of the University Democrats, or UDems, said the policy disrupts practices that have been in place for years. UDems President Ally Flores said the group has hosted State Representative James Talarico, former Congressman Beto O’Rourke and other local politicians in recent years without having to go through UT officials. Under the new law, Flores said they need to request permission from the Dean of Students office two weeks in advance, and the approval process has led to delays.

“It just felt like the goal post was kind of ever moving, and we weren’t able to figure out how they were choosing to implement this bill,” Flores said.

She said the new law also affects UDem’s voter registration efforts. The group has been inviting volunteer deputy voter registrars to campus for years. Last election cycle, Flores said UDems helped register 8,000 students to vote. Under the new law, volunteer registrars must be approved in advance and are only allowed in designated areas.

“And those places that they’ve designated are pretty low-traffic areas, so we wouldn’t be able to register many people anyway,” Flores said.

Guests who arrive on UT’s campus without permission could be charged with criminal trespassing.

Joe Jaworski, a Democratic candidate for Texas attorney general and a recent speaker at UDems, said UT’s interpretation of the new law imposes on free speech rights.

“To allow administrators to accept or reject, and I emphasize reject, an application for a speaker, is a prior restraint,” Jaworski said.

UT did not agree to an interview for this story. KUT also reached out to UT’s College Republicans chapter but did not hear back before publication time.

In addition to speaker restrictions, the law prohibits students from engaging in disruptive activities between the hours of 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. and prohibits using a device to amplify sound during the last two weeks of a semester.

The measure reverses a bill Texas legislators passed in 2019 that expanded free speech protections on public university campuses.

Several student organizations have filed a lawsuit against UT Austin President Jim Davis, UT Dallas President Prabhas V. Moghe, the UT Board of Regents and UT System Chancellor Dr. John Zerwas over the new law. They’re calling on the U.S. District Court in Austin to issue a preliminary injunction, which would prevent enforcement of the law until a final ruling in the case.

That litigation is ongoing.

Texas Tech system’s vague guidelines on gender identity spur more questions than answers

As a viral video of a Texas A&M student and professor debating the legality of discussing gender identity roiled the College Station university and spurred a political firestorm, deans hundreds of miles away at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock quietly rolled out new instructions for faculty.

Teaching doctors were told to remove words like “transgender,” “DEI” and “affirmative action” from their curricula, a professor told The Texas Tribune. Simulated patient exams that included scenarios with transgender patients were suddenly in question.

Professors decided to delay lessons that contained those terms, in part because “there isn’t a synonym for transgender.” But they were concerned: Removing such instruction would undercut the school’s mission to prepare health workers for underserved West Texas communities, the professor said.

“The Hippocratic Oath is ‘first do no harm,’ right? But if students aren’t prepared, then they are going to do harm,” the professor said.

October 6, 2025

Governors Beware: The Voucher Advocates in DC Are Not Serious About Returning Education to the States

The 2025 Reconciliation Act, or “One Big Beautiful Bill,” creates a federal school choice program offering tax credits for donations to Scholarship Granting Organizations that fund private-school tuition. Though promoted as flexible for states, forthcoming Treasury Department regulations are expected to limit state control and expand largely unregulated voucher programs. This policy memo warns that such programs have historically led to academic declines, inequities, and weakened public schools. It urges governors to either reject participation or condition their involvement on guarantees of state-level control, transparency, and non-discrimination protections.

October 5, 2025

Texas L.G.B.T.Q. Teenagers and Families Navigate a Public School Clampdown

The day before summer break ended in August, Kenneth and Amelia Smith learned their 13-year-old child would not be addressed at school by her preferred name. So they decided the eighth grader, who had said she was transgender a few months earlier, would learn in their home in Katy, Texas, a conservative suburb west of Houston.

The Katy school district’s decision to tell teachers not to call certain students by names that do not match their birth certificates came after Gov. Greg Abbott signed a Republican-led education bill that prohibits employees at K-12 public and charter schools from “assisting” students with socially transitioning genders, including through name or pronoun changes.

Also banned were authorized student clubs based on gender identity or expression, such as L.G.B.T.Q. Pride clubs, or gender and sexuality alliances.

“We just couldn’t send her to school in that harmful environment,” Ms. Smith, 41, said.

The Texas measure is among the most far-reaching anti-diversity laws in the country and the first to explicitly ban such clubs, part of a broader backlash on gender issues in the state that has already affected higher education. At Texas A&M, a professor was fired and the university president resigned last month after a lecture recognizing more than two genders came under fire. Texas Tech University directed faculty to comply with President Trump’s executive order recognizing only male and female genders.
Supporters of the K-12 law argue that gender and sexuality are topics too contentious for school and that conservative victories in the 2024 Republican primaries, fought specifically on education issues, showed the Legislature was reflecting the will of voters.

“Suggesting that Texas parents are ‘OK’ with what was happening in public schools before Governor Abbott passed these protections is completely absurd,” said Andrew Mahaleris, the governor’s spokesman, in a statement.

UT-Austin considering offer to adopt Trump priorities for funding advantages

The Trump administration has asked the University of Texas at Austin to agree to a “set of operating principles” — which reportedly include adopting a stricter definition of gender, a five-year tuition freeze and a cap on international student enrollment — in exchange for preferential access to federal funding, the University of Texas System confirmed on Thursday.

Background: The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that the Trump administration sent a letter to UT-Austin and eight other universities asking them to join a “compact” that would qualify them for the benefit.

Conditions: The schools would have to:

Adopt a stricter definition of gender
Issue a five-year tuition freeze
Ban the use of race and sex considerations in admissions and hiring
Cap enrollment of international undergraduate students at 15%
Require applicants to take the SAT or a similar test
Stay politically neutral
Restructure academic programs the Trump administration says sideline conservative viewpoints
Crack down on disruptive protests
Refund tuition to students who drop out within the first year
Commit to grading standards that “only rigorously reflect the demonstrated mastery of a subject that the grade purports to represent”

Support: In a statement to the Tribune, UT System Board of Regents Chair Kevin Eltife said the system was honored UT-Austin was selected to be part of the Trump administration’s proposal.

Opposition: Faculty leaders voiced alarm. Pauline Strong, who heads the UT-Austin chapter of the American Association of University Professors, urged Eltife and UT-Austin President Jim Davis to reject the deal.

October 2, 2025

TSTA urges comptroller to tighten voucher rules to prevent out-of-state virtual schools from cashing in on new program

The state comptroller’s office is adopting rules to administer the state’s new education savings account, or voucher, program, which next year will spend about $1 billion in tax funds to help as many as 90,000 Texas students attend private school or be homeschooled.

TSTA submitted comments at a public hearing this week asking the comptroller to prohibit out-of-state, virtual private school operators from sharing in the tax giveaway. We pointed out that the agency’s proposed rules lack any requirement for an educational entity receiving voucher funds to have a physical presence in Texas or employ people living in Texas.

The rules also could allow out-of-state, for-profit charter management operators to share in the voucher funds by providing virtual educational services to Texas students. Charter operators who already receive tax funds from Texas must operate as non-profits.

Unless these deficiencies in the proposed rules are changed, we warned, large amounts of voucher tax dollars may be spent on out-of-state entities.

We also asked that the rules be revised to make it clear that providers and vendors receiving voucher funds are required to obey state and federal non-discrimination laws. And we said the rules must be tightened to guard against inflated payments to the Certified Educational Assistance Organizations that will review voucher applications and help students find approved vendors.

The voucher law provides that the Certified Educational Assistance Organizations can receive no more than five percent of the total funds appropriated for the ESA, or voucher, program. But the proposed rules don’t provide guidance to the comptroller for determining the cost of services to be provided by these organizations, perhaps allowing them to inflate costs to receive the full five percent.

Other witnesses asked the comptroller’s office to address a discrepancy in voucher funding for pre-K students, ensure fairness for children with disabilities who participate in the program and provide the public with comprehensive data on student outcomes.
Read all our comments.

Texans ask for eligibility fixes, stronger accountability in school voucher program

October 1, 2025

The federal government has shut down; here’s what it means for Texas

The federal government officially shut down at midnight as lawmakers blew their deadline to preserve funding for federal agencies, a lapse that could disrupt services many Texans rely on and slow the flow of certain benefits if the shutdown drags out.

What does the shutdown mean for Texans? Thousands of federal workers in the state will head to work Wednesday without the promise of a paycheck until both parties in Congress can cut a deal to restore funding. Other federal civilian employees will be furloughed if their jobs are not deemed essential. Texas is home to more federal civilian employees than all but three other states, counting over 130,000 workers as of September 2024. Including uniformed personnel, the Defense Department employed more than 200,000 Texans last year.

What about nonessential employees? The funding gap means a likely work stoppage for personnel who have been considered nonessential during past shutdowns, including custodial staff at Big Bend National Park, certain employees at the Veterans Benefits Administration regional offices in Houston and Waco and Department of Agriculture service center officers across the state.

Who is required to continue working? Workers who perform critical functions, including air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration agents at Texas airports, are almost always required to work without pay during shutdowns. Since 2019, those employees — along with furloughed workers — have been guaranteed back pay once federal funding is restored.

How will people know for certain if they’re essential? In the days leading up to an expected shutdown, federal agencies typically release shutdown plans laying out which employees will be furloughed, but not all have done so this year — creating confusion about who exactly is considered essential. Further compounding federal workers’ stress, the White House put out a memo to federal agencies threatening mass layoffs in the event of a shutdown.

How long could this last? The standoff could go on for weeks, with Senate Republicans needing to secure Democratic support to reach the 60 votes required to pass a spending bill through the upper chamber. The last government shutdown — a partial stoppage in 2018 — lasted 35 days.

September 30, 2025

Texas’ guidance on end of in-state tuition for undocumented students doesn’t clear confusion, advocates say

Student advocates say highly anticipated state guidance on how schools should follow a recent court ruling ending in-state tuition for undocumented students still doesn’t offer meaningful clarity on how to determine who still qualifies for the benefit.

Those advocates say clear guidance from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is urgently needed at a time when schools across the state, in a scramble to comply with the court ruling, have incorrectly told some students they can no longer pay in-state tuition.

“The rules don’t help at all. They create even more confusion…You’re just going to have, again, more people getting wrongly denied,” said Julieta Garibay, co-founder of United We Dream, a national immigrant advocacy group.

On top of perpetuating confusion, advocates worry the coordinating board’s proposed rules will put undocumented students at risk.

September 29, 2025

Anti-DEI crusader Sid Miller urged UT to enroll student emphasizing her race and socioeconomic status

In January, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller declared “war on DEI,” directing his agency to stop working with businesses that embrace policies that give advantages to people based on “race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin.”

He condemned the Biden Administration for allowing “unfair” diversity, equity, and inclusion policies “to infect all aspects of our federal government, major corporations, financial institutions, the medical industry, and institutions of higher education,” Miller said in a press release.

But in May 2023, he wrote a letter to leaders of the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Texas at Austin emphasizing a student’s ethnicity and socioeconomic status as he urged the schools to reconsider her enrollment.

He said the student was a “biracial Latina,” whose father had “retreated” to Argentina a decade ago, leaving her mother to raise the student and her brother by herself. The student, he said, had been accepted but missed the enrollment deadline earlier that month. She did not have a computer, and did not know to look for the acceptance letter online, Miller wrote.

September 28, 2025

Families crave answers as changes near for 12 F-rated Austin schools

Stephanie Bogany’s teachers go above and beyond for her first-grade son, she told other parents and staff gathered in the cafeteria of Widén Elementary School on Monday.

“In two years that he’s been here, he’s thrived,” Bogany said of the school in Southeast Austin. “He has thrived and he doesn’t adapt to change well.”

That’s why she and other families at the meeting worried about the changes that Austin school district leadership said were required for Widén and 11 other campuses that have failed state academic standards for three years in a row.

District officials presented three options: close the school, hand the campus to a charter operator or create a “turnaround” plan to bolster academics, including new requirements for principals and teachers. The third option would likely include at least some turnover of staff at the campus.

The scene has been repeated at 12 campuses across the district over the past two weeks as parents ask district leaders for answers and stability. For many families, the uncertainty has been underscored by already planned monumental changes for Austin schools, including a highly anticipated Oct. 3 announcement of campus closures for budgetary reasons and attendance boundary updates. The school board will vote on those plans by Nov. 20.

The state rates schools and districts on an A-F letter grade system, which is largely based on scores and growth on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness tests.

September 27, 2025

Texas State University professor reinstated by court after being fired for “inciting violence”

A Texas State University professor who was fired after being accused of inciting violence will be reinstated after a judge on Friday granted an injunction in his lawsuit against the university.

Thomas Alter was fired on Sept. 10 after a video of him at an online socialist conference was posted online depicting him talking about political organization, which university administration said allegedly “advocate[d] for inciting violence.” Alter, whose tenure officially began on Sept. 1, subsequently sued the university, alleging they violated due process by terminating him abruptly.

Hays County District Judge Alicia Key granted an injunction Friday that allows Alter to be reinstated. The university will now review Alter’s case through its standard faculty investigative process alongside the suit, Alter’s lawyer said.

Alter will not be allowed to teach classes but will be reinstated with pay, according to a statement from Texas State University.

September 26, 2025

Angelo State University bans classroom discussions of transgender topics, stirring criticism and confusion

Angelo State University officials have banned professors from discussing transgender and nonbinary identities in their courses, according to interviews with faculty members and several emails a professor provided to The Texas Tribune.

The move makes ASU the first known public Texas university to largely restrict classroom acknowledgement of such gender identities, heightening concerns about threats to academic freedom across the state.

Brittney Miller, spokesperson for the San Angelo school that is part of the Texas Tech University System, declined to discuss details of the directives or provide a written policy.

The new restrictions originated in a Friday meeting with President Ronnie D. Hawkins and academic leaders. They were then communicated to professors through emails or in-person meetings, according to English professor Linda Kornasky and multiple faculty members who would only speak to the Tribune on the condition of anonymity. The professors said a written policy doesn’t exist.

Without confirming or denying the guidance, Miller only said in a statement that the university is following President Donald Trump’s executive order recognizing only male and female genders as assigned at birth, Gov. Greg Abbott’s letter directing state agencies to “reject woke gender ideologies” and House Bill 229 — a state law that requires a strict binary definition of gender for the collection of vital statistics but doesn’t mention academic discussions.

Academic freedom and civil rights groups have pushed back against the justification for ASU’s restrictions, saying the federal executive order and the governor’s directive don’t constitute law, and HB 229 does not explicitly mention higher education. They called the directives overreach that undermines academic freedom and erases trans campus members.

September 25, 2025

Christian activist David Barton will advise Texas State Board of Education during social studies overhaul

Before finalizing changes to Texas’ social studies standards next summer, the Republican-dominated State Board of Education will consider input from a conservative Christian activist who views church-state separation as a myth and the Ten Commandments as foundational to American education.

Announced by Republican members Brandon Hall and Julie Pickren last week, David Barton will serve as one of several expert content advisers to the board as it develops a new social studies agenda that will dedicate more time across school grades to Texas and U.S. history while placing less attention on world history and cultures.

Board members can nominate content advisers to review and provide feedback during the revision process. Barton served in a similar role when the board revised its social studies standards in 2010.

His appointment comes ahead of what are expected to be intense debates about Texas’ social studies framework, specifically how and what students should learn about history. Those discussions will take place as Texas’ Republican leaders increasingly push to inject Christian beliefs and values into public school classrooms.

September 24, 2025

Texas teachers, parents fear STAAR overhaul won’t take testing pressure off kids

Texas public school administrators, parents and education experts worry that a new law to replace the state’s standardized test, STAAR, could potentially increase student stress and the amount of time they spend taking tests, instead of reducing it.

Why replace it? The new law comes amid criticism that the STAAR test creates too much stress for students and takes up too much instructional time. The new system aims to ease the pressure of a single exam by replacing STAAR with three shorter tests, which will be administered at the beginning, middle and end of the year starting in the 2027-28 school year. It will also ban practice tests, which officials said can take up weeks of instruction time and aren’t proven to help students do better.

How will it impact school ratings? The law calls for the TEA to study how to reduce the weight testing carries on the state’s annual school accountability ratings — which STAAR critics say is one reason why the test is so stressful and absorbs so much learning time — and create a way for the results of the three new tests to be factored into the ratings. That report is not due until the 2029-30 school year, and the TEA is not required to implement those findings.

What are the concerns with the new system? Some parents and teachers worry the changes won’t go far enough and that three tests will triple the pressure. And some worry the new law will mean schools’ ratings will continue to heavily depend on the results from the end-of-year test, while requiring students to start taking three exams. In other words: same pressure, more testing.

September 23, 2025

More Texas school districts sued over display of Ten Commandments in classrooms

The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, along with other civil rights groups, filed a second lawsuit in federal court Monday to stop more Texas public school districts from displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

Earlier this summer, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 10 into law, requiring every public school classroom in the state to include a poster with the Ten Commandments.

Last month, the groups — who are representing Texas families of varying religious and nonreligious backgrounds — successfully argued for a preliminary injunction against 11 school districts in Texas’ largest metropolitan areas. While issuing the injunction, U.S. Judge Fred Biery wrote the new law “likely violates both the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution.

“This (new) lawsuit is a continuation of our work to defend the First Amendment and ensure that government officials stay out of personal family decisions,” said Chloe Kempf, a staff attorney at the ACLU Texas. “All students — regardless of their race or religious background — should feel accepted and free to be themselves in Texas public schools.”

The new lawsuit, filed in the same San Antonio district court as the initial lawsuit, names another 14 districts as defendants. They are located in the Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio areas as well as the Rio Grande Valley.

September 22, 2025

Major statewide propositions will be on the November ballot; here are your voting rights in Texas

Texans next opportunity to use their vote to shape state policies and their communities will be during the November 4 elections.

On the ballot are 17 constitutional amendments, including billions of dollars in property tax cuts for homeowners and businesses.

Some Texans may also see local elections for elected officials or for measures to raise property taxes or issue bonds to pay for projects and services.

Some notable local elections across the state include:

A special election for Texas’ 18th Congressional District in Harris County.
Special election for Houston City Council’s At-Large Position Four in Harris County.
Three Houston ISD school board seats in Harris County.
Richardson ISD bond election in Dallas County.
Several bond propositions from North East ISD in Bexar County.
City of Austin tax rate increase proposition in Travis County.

You can check your county’s elections website to see if there are any local elections where you live.

Voters across Texas will get the final say on 17 constitutional amendments, which will appear at the top of ballots. To learn more about those propositions, read The Texas Tribune’s guide.

Texas voters need to be registered to vote by Oct. 6 and early voting begins Oct. 20.

September 21, 2025

ASU to Put New Transgender Policies in Place

Transgender discussions in class, and transgender language in course material will be hounded off college campuses in Texas, following orders from Pres. Donald Trump, and Gov. Greg Abbott, according to news reports, and information from a meeting with the leadership of Angelo State University.

The Concho Observer was furnished with the following information regarding new Transgender policies at the school.

According to our understanding of new policy:

There is to be no discussion of transgender topics or any topics that suggest there are more than two genders as determined by one’s biological sex at birth.
Information in syllibi about transgender topics must be removed.
Instructors must refer to students by their given names and not their preferred names.
Safe-space stickers, LGBTQ flags, etc. are not allowed and must be removed.
All employees are to remove pronouns from email signatures.

The university will not back up or defend faculty who teach these topics or discuss them in class.

According to a statement from ASU Director of Communications and Marketing Brittney Miller “Angelo State University is a public institute of higher education and is therefore subject to both state and federal law, executive orders and directives from the President of the United States, and executive orders and directives from the Governor of Texas. As such, Angelo State fully complies with the letter of the law.”

Update September 21, 2025 at 5:30 p.m.

The Concho Observer has confirmed that ASU will be holding mandatory meetings for all faculty and staff starting tomorrow Monday September 22, 2025. There are at least three meetings scheduled in various rooms on campus and all employees are required to attend one of them. Apparently legal staff will be present at the meetings to explain the new policies. According to our sources faculty have been told that if they make any statement implying that there are more than two sexes or genders (male and female) they will be fired.

September 18, 2025

White House review of Smithsonian content could reach into classrooms nationwide

High school history teacher Katharina Matro often pulls materials from the Smithsonian Institution website as she assembles her lessons. She trusts its materials and uses documents and other primary sources it curates for discussions of topics such as genocide and slavery.

As the White House presses for changes at the Smithsonian, she’s worried she may not be able to rely on it in the same way.

“We don’t want a partisan history,” said Matro, a teacher in Bethesda, Md. “We want the history that’s produced by real historians.”

Far beyond museums in Washington, President Trump’s review at the Smithsonian could influence how history is taught in classrooms around the country. The institution is a leading provider of curriculum and other educational materials, which are subject to the sweeping new assessment of all its public-facing content.

Trump is moving to bring the Smithsonian into alignment with his vision of American history. In a letter last month to the Smithsonian Institution, the White House said its review is meant to “assess tone, historical framing, and alignment with American ideals.” It’s part of Trump’s agenda to “celebrate American exceptionalism” by removing “divisive or partisan narratives,” it said.

Those opposed to the changes fear they will promote a more sanitized version of American history.

In celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary next year, the Education Department recently launched the White House’s Founders Museum in partnership with PragerU, a conservative nonprofit that produces videos on politics and history. Visitors to the museum in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, as well as the White House website, can read biographies on the signers of the Declaration of Independence and watch videos that depict them speaking.

The project mentions some signers favoring abolition and includes Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved woman who became the first published Black female poet in the U.S. But critics say it brushes over some of the nation’s darker past.

“Those are the kinds of things that teachers are really leery of because they don’t see partisanship in the sources that we’re using as being good educational practice,” said Tina Ellsworth, president of the National Council for the Social Studies.

September 15, 2025

State Board of Education OKs Texas-heavy social studies plan, setting stage for clash over history lessons

The State Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies teaching plan that will dedicate more time across school grades to Texas and US history while placing less attention on world history and cultures.

The Republican-dominated board voted 8-7 in favor of the proposal, which marks only one step in a longer effort by the group to revise Texas’ social studies standards and set new guidelines for what students should learn before they graduate. Republicans Evelyn Brooks and Pam Little joined Democrats in opposition to the plan.

The final tally was a reversal from a preliminary vote on Wednesday, when a board majority signaled support for a different teaching plan that included what educators considered a more inclusive approach.

Some members who voted Friday for the new plan, which was championed by conservative groups, did not participate in the preliminary vote on Wednesday. Will Hickman, a Houston Republican board member, voted with the majority Friday after having supported the former plan earlier in the week, telling his colleagues that he did not think there was “one right answer.”

September 12, 2025

Texas legislative committees will study freedom of speech on college campuses in wake of Charlie Kirk killing

Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Friday announced the formation of committees to study bias and free speech at universities amid a firestorm of criticism from conservative lawmakers on statements made by university faculty and students.

The House and Senate Select Committees on Civil Discourse & Freedom of Speech in Higher Education were formed “honoring the life and legacy of Charlie Kirk,” according to a press release. Kirk, a Christian conservative activist who frequently traveled to college campuses to discuss controversial politics, was shot and killed on Wednesday at Utah Valley University during one of his events.

In the wake of Kirk’s death, Republican lawmakers and activists in Texas and across the state have harshly criticized online commentary mocking Kirk and his killing. Several lawmakers have called for the removal of school teachers, professors and public officials who criticized Kirk, which Burrows said highlighted the necessity of the committee.

“The political assassination of Charlie Kirk — and the national reaction it has sparked, including the public celebration of his murder by some in higher education — is appalling and reveals a deeper, systemic problem worth examining,” Burrows said in the press release.

September 11, 2025

Providing basic care to students does not violate Texas’ parental consent law, state guidance to schools says

Texas’ new parental consent law does not prevent nurses from administering basic health-related services like providing Band-Aids or checking a student’s temperature, according to updated state guidance sent to school district administrators on Thursday.

The Texas Education Agency’s revised guidance came in response to widespread confusion about Senate Bill 12, a sweeping state law that includes a requirement for schools to obtain written approval from parents before offering to students routine health assistance and medication or conducting medical procedures.

School districts are required to take disciplinary action against any employees who provide such services to students without parental consent. Some districts had interpreted the law as requiring consent for every non-emergency, health-related circumstance. SB 12’s authors last week urged education officials to clarify that the extreme levels of caution exercised by some districts were not necessary for what the lawmakers consider “common sense” practices.

The new guidance, which may undergo further changes, attempts to make a clear distinction between health care services and health-related services.

September 10, 2025

Some Texas charter schools have high superintendent pay, low student achievement, report shows

Three charter school superintendents who are among the highest paid in Texas are overseeing some of the lowest-performing districts in the state, newly released records show. One of them is at risk of closure by school year’s end.

An investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune previously revealed that board members at Valere Public Schools had paid Superintendent Salvador Cavazos up to $870,000 annually in recent years, roughly triple what it reported publicly to the state and on its website. Two other districts the newsrooms covered, Faith Family Academy and Gateway Charter Academy, also substantially underreported the compensation paid to their top leaders.

The state determined that all three of those districts have had failing or near-failing levels of performance in recent years. The ratings, released last month by the Texas Education Agency, also show that charter schools make up the majority of the districts that have repeatedly had “unacceptable” performance, though they account for a small portion of public schools across Texas. The agency published two years’ worth of accountability ratings for the state’s public and charter schools that were previously undisclosed due to litigation.

September 9, 2025

Texas educators praise new school cellphone ban

School officials say that in the wake of Texas’ new cellphone ban in public K-12 schools, students have become more engaged in and outside of classrooms. The ban on cellphones, laptops and tablets — which took effect on Sept. 1 — has prompted Texas’ more than 1,200 school districts to adopt policies ranging from secure device pouches to increased monitoring.

While some officials were concerned that schools would face pushback from students and parents, administrators across the state said that hasn’t happened. Instead, school officials say they’re seeing signs of positive change after years of concerns that cellphones and addictive social media apps distracted students during instructional time.

“At one of our campuses, for example, they had to get some Uno cards and other things for students to do during lunch because they wanted that engagement, so there’s a lot more face-to-face conversation going on,” said Abilene ISD superintendent John Khun. “I’ve had teachers telling me they’ve noticed students are doing a better job making eye contact and just engaging in conversation than they were before.”

More than 30 states have passed similar legislation after Florida became the first to codify a ban two years ago. Every state that doesn’t have a cellphone ban on the books has a bill in the works that would enact one.

September 8, 2025

Video of clash over gender-identity content in Texas A&M children’s lit class leads to firing, removals

Facing growing political pressure, Texas A&M University President Mark A. Welsh III announced Tuesday evening that a professor teaching a children’s literature course at the center of a viral recording was fired and that the university would conduct a full audit of its courses.

The announcement came after a video circulated online Monday showing a student confronting a professor over LGBTQ-related content in the class, sparking backlash from Republican lawmakers and calls for investigations, a response from the U.S. Department of Justice, and a statement from the Texas A&M System chancellor pledging to discipline the professor. A university spokesperson on Tuesday confirmed the professor was senior lecturer Melissa McCoul.

In his statement Tuesday, Welsh said changes were made over the summer to ensure that content not aligned within “reasonable expectation” of curriculum would not be taught after issues with the course were raised to university officials. Welsh later learned Monday night another course was continuing to teach material inconsistent with the published course description, resulting in the teacher’s removal.

“This isn’t about academic freedom; it’s about academic responsibility,” Welsh said. “Our degree programs and courses go through extensive approval processes, and we must ensure that what we ultimately deliver to students is consistent with what was approved.”

September 7, 2025

Austin ISD to host meetings on closures as 12 more schools are flagged for failing grades

A dozen schools in the Austin Independent School District will need to close or make significant changes after receiving three consecutive failing grades from the state.

The Texas Education Agency ratings were released last month. Austin ISD saw some improvements from last year, but roughly one third of the district’s 116 campuses still had unacceptable ratings.

In a letter sent to Austin ISD officials, the TEA said dozens of schools will need to submit plans to the state detailing how they will improve student outcomes. Twelve schools are required to submit plans by mid-November and implement them as soon as they are approved. Those plans could include major staffing changes and an infusion of new programs.

The 12 schools are Winn Montessori School, Barrington, Dawson, Linder, Oak Springs, Pecan Springs, Sanchez, Widen and Wooldridge elementary schools and Bedichek, Martin and Paredes middle schools.

“The data reflects that the district’s current approach is not working, and urgent transformational change is necessary to improve outcomes for all Austin ISD students,” TEA Commissioner Mike Morath said in the letter.

Three Austin ISD schools — Webb, Dobie and Burnet — are already on improvement plans after receiving a fourth consecutive “F” from the state. Those plans cost the district $1.7 million per campus. If the schools receive another failing grade next year, the entire district could be taken over by the state.

In a letter to parents, Austin ISD Superintendent Matias Segura said the district could choose to close some of the 12 schools the TEA said need to go on improvement plans or turn them over to a charter operator. The district is already in the process of deciding which schools need to be closed or consolidated to fix its nearly $20 million budget deficit.

September 6, 2025

Texas’ new parental consent law leaves school nurses confused about which services they can provide to students

A new state law requiring schools to obtain parental consent before administering health care services to students has triggered confusion among campus nurses who worry they could face punishment for routine acts like offering bandages or handing out ice packs.

The confusion is in response to Senate Bill 12, a sweeping law banning diversity, equity and inclusion practices; instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity; and LGBTQ+ student clubs. SB 12 comes as part of a larger effort by Texas Republicans to shape how public schools engage with students and their families on topics like race, racism, gender and sex.

Incorporated into the law are what Republican lawmakers call “parental rights” provisions, which include a requirement for Texas schools to get written approval from parents before offering routine health assistance and medication or conducting medical procedures. School districts are required to take disciplinary action against any employees who provide such services without consent.

In response, enforcement of the legislation has varied widely across the state’s more than 1,200 school districts. Some have interpreted the law as still allowing for regular care, like first-aid treatment and injury evaluation. Others have indicated they will not assess or treat a student except in life-threatening emergencies.

September 5, 2025

Texas launches downloadable form to exempt kids from school-required vaccines

Texas parents will no longer have to wait weeks for a vaccine exemption form to be mailed to them if they want their children opted out of state-required immunizations to attend school.

This week, the state health agency quietly unveiled the new downloadable vaccine exemption form, the result of state Rep. Lacey Hull’s House Bill 1586 which went into effect on Monday. Along with the form, the Texas Department of State Health Services also published a document listing the benefits and risks of immunization.

The new law does nothing to change the childhood vaccine schedule. Instead, it would allow parents to download at home a form that allows children to be exempted from being vaccinated in order to attend public schools. The parents can show the same filled out form for two years before having to fill out a new one.

Before the new law, parents had to contact the state health agency and request the exemption form be mailed to them.

September 4, 2025

Texas student groups sue to block state law that limits campus protests

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued the University of Texas System in federal court on Wednesday to block a new state law that creates rules for campus protests and gives university systems’ governing boards the power to limit where they can take place.

In the 59-page lawsuit, attorneys from FIRE argue that Senate Bill 2972 violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments because it prohibits protected expression and speech. According to the law, expressive activity is banned on campuses from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m., a rule that applies to students, campus groups and university employees.

“The First Amendment doesn’t set when the sun goes down,” said FIRE attorney JT Morris. “University students have expressive freedom whether it’s midnight or midday, and Texas can’t just legislate those constitutional protections out of existence.”

Lawmakers passed SB 2972 during this year’s regular legislative session largely in response to last year’s pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses. Republicans who support the law say it will prevent disruption and unsafe behavior seen during those demonstrations. Critics say it contradicts previous conservative efforts to protect free speech rights on Texas campuses.

September 3, 2025

The Texas House is due to consider HB 8, the STAAR replacement tests, TODAY

This is our LAST CHANCE to stop even more testing for our students! Please reach out to your House Rep NOW! HB 8 strips local control, increases testing and unfairly privileges charter schools over neighborhood public schools.

Say NO to more high-stakes testing! Tell your representative that you oppose HB 8!

September 2, 2025

More than 800 new laws went into effect in Texas on September 1; Here are some of the significant ones

More than 800 new laws are about to take effect in Texas, and they are set to bring sweeping changes to the state’s education systems, water infrastructure and more.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed 1,155 bills that came out of the regular legislative session, including over 200 laws that went into effect immediately such as the school cellphone ban, the abortion ban clarification, property tax cut and increased oversight over the energy grid. Meanwhile, some won’t activate until next year or until voters approve constitutional amendments in November, such as stricter bail policies and a $3 billion dementia research fund. In addition, there are 140 bills that the governor didn’t take action on, including 34 that took effect immediately.

Most, however, will start on Sept. 1, the traditional date for laws passed during the regular session. Here are some notable measures that will soon take effect:

Senate Bill 1 lays out the state’s new $338 billion two-year spending plan, with over 70% of the budget being reserved for education and health and human services. Some notable parts include spending to maintain and provide property tax cuts, a new school voucher program, additional funding for public schools, as well as investments in the state’s energy, water and broadband infrastructure.

September 1, 2025

ACLU, other groups sue to block Texas’ DEI ban on K-12 public schools

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and a group of LGBTQ+ and student rights organizations are suing to block a new state law that would ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in K-12 public schools.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court, attorneys from the ACLU of Texas and Transgender Law Center argue that Senate Bill 12 violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments as well as the Equal Access Act. Gov. Greg Abbott signed the legislation last June, and it will go into effect Sept. 1 alongside an array of other transformative laws for public education in Texas.

“Senate Bill 12 is a blatant attempt to erase students’ identities and silence the stories that make Texas strong,” said Brian Klosterboer, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas. “Every student — no matter their race, gender, or background — deserves to feel seen, safe, and supported in school.”

Supporters of SB 12 say DEI programs use class time and public funds to promote political agendas, while opponents believe banning those initiatives will disproportionately harm marginalized students by removing spaces where they can find support.

August 29, 2025

“Bathroom bill” aimed at trans people approved by Texas House after decade of failed attempts

Texas House members clashed over a bill that would restrict which restrooms transgender people can use in government buildings and schools, but ultimately approved it late Thursday.

Representatives approved Senate Bill 8 on a 86-45 vote after several hours of tense debate that was at times interrupted by people in the gallery shouting insults at lawmakers who supported the bill. The House gallery, where visitors can watch proceedings, was emptied out by staff and Department of Public Safety officers after the disruptions continued.

SB 8 would restrict bathroom use in government-owned buildings, public schools and universities based of sex assigned at birth and would not allow exceptions for transgender inmates’ housing in prisons and jails. It would also bar those assigned male at birth from accessing women’s domestic violence shelters, unless they are under 17 and the child of a woman also receiving services.

Bathroom bills proposing civil or criminal penalties for entering restrooms not matching biological sex have been proposed in Texas for more than a decade, and 19 other states have successfully passed their own proposals. The Texas House, however, has largely failed to garner traction for bathroom bills after a tense battle over one proposal in 2017. The Texas Senate has passed six different bathroom bills since 2017.

August 28, 2025

1 in 4 Texas school districts sign up for new Bible-infused curriculum

More than 300 Texas school districts and charter schools have signaled plans to use a state-developed reading and language arts curriculum that attracted national attention last year for its heavy references to the Bible and Christianity, according to data obtained by The Texas Tribune.

Is that a lot? That number represents about a quarter of Texas’ 1,207 districts and charters and could still grow before the state publishes official data in the early fall. But the preliminary numbers offer an early glimpse into demand for the elementary school materials narrowly approved by the Republican-dominated State Board of Education in November.

Where do the numbers come from? The Texas Education Agency asks schools to submit information on the instructional materials they plan to use each year to ensure their compliance with state learning standards. The Tribune obtained data through an open records request on the schools planning to use the TEA’s new Bluebonnet curriculum, which includes religion-infused reading lessons as well as phonics and math materials.

Why are districts adopting Bluebonnet? The Tribune reached out to over a dozen district officials and school board members to ask them about their decision to adopt the curriculum or not. Of the districts that do plan to use the reading materials, many said the religious components did not factor into their choice. Their reasons included:

Getting the additional funding districts qualify for if they adopt the curriculum
Better aligning their instruction with what the state expects children to learn
Avoiding punitive measures from the state if students do not perform up to par on Texas’ standardized exams, which could include removal of a district’s superintendent and elected board members

August 26, 2025

House Democrats’ frustration with STAAR bill highlights divide over how new test should look

Standing across from House Democrats on the chamber floor Tuesday, Representative Brad Buckley defended his bill to replace STAAR, the state’s widely unpopular standardized test. Just months ago, they had been standing behind him.

The House voted to approve the measure in the end, despite Democrats’ opposition. The 82-56 vote was a far cry from the broad support an earlier House proposal received earlier this year. It also put a spotlight on what the new test could look like, which will determine whether the replacement for STAAR will ease the pressures of testing on students or exacerbate them.

Lawmakers say changes to the test are urgently needed as they use this year’s second special session to try for the third time to find an alternative. STAAR test results have an outsized impact on the accountability rating system the state uses to evaluate how well schools are educating Texas students.

House Bill 8 and its counterpart in the upper chamber, Senate Bill 9, would swap STAAR for three shorter tests to be administered at the beginning, middle and end of the school year. The similar language in both bills is a result of negotiations between Buckley and Sen. Paul Bettencourt, SB 9’s author, after the chambers failed to agree on how to revamp STAAR during the regular session.

August 25, 2025

The Texas House is due to consider HB 8, the STAAR replacement tests, soon

TSTA has several concerns about the proposed changes to the STAAR testing scheme and urges legislators to vote NO on HB 8.

Please reach out to your House Rep today! HB 8 strips local control, increases testing and unfairly privileges charter schools over neighborhood public schools.

Say NO to more high-stakes testing! Tell your representative that you oppose HB 8!

August 22, 2025

Tensions flare as Texas House panel hears a “bathroom bill” for first time in eight years

Tensions between Texans flared at the Capitol on Friday during public testimony over a legislative proposal limiting transgender peoples’ use of bathrooms in government buildings.

CJ Grisham spoke in favor of the restrictions in Senate Bill 8, one of the items Gov. Greg Abbott asked legislators to pass during this year’s special legislative sessions. After Grishman spoke, several people attending the House State Affairs meeting booed and hurled expletives at him, saying he should be ashamed. Grisham responded with his own expletives before being ushered to the back of the room by a House staff member.

A Department Public Safety officer eventually removed Grisham from the room after a woman in the audience said she felt threatened. In an interview, Grisham said he felt threatened and that he would file a complaint with DPS for being unfairly removed based on his speech.

August 21, 2025

Texas Public Schools Explorer

Use the Texas Tribune’s public schools database to learn more about the state’s 1,207 districts and 9,082 public schools, including hundreds of charter schools and alternative campuses. You can easily navigate through information on demographics, academic performance, college readiness and average teacher salaries for each school or district.

Last updated August 2025.

August 19, 2025

Debates over redistricting, THC, abortion pills and more resume as Democrats end walkout, return for second special session

Texas House Democrats returned to Austin on Monday, allowing the chamber to resume business with a quorum for the first time in two weeks. Over 50 Democrats left the state to prevent Republicans from passing new congressional maps aimed at increasing their influence in Congress. Now, with the Legislature in its second special session, the rare mid-decade redistricting plan can continue to be heard and voted on. But given that Democrats are outnumbered, it’s nearly certain Republicans will get their way.

Nevertheless, they framed their protest as a victory for sinking the first special session and encouraging leaders of blue states to push their own partisan redistricting plans in retaliation to Texas’ plan. As a result of their efforts, California unveiled a new congressional map on Friday that would give Democrats up to five new U.S. House seats. Texas Democrats also said that the end of the walkout marked the next phase of their plan to fight the map in court.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Dustin Burrows was quick to rain on their parade. He said those who participated in the walkout and returned to the Legislature would receive an around-the-clock police escort from the Texas Department of Public Safety once the House adjourned Monday. And he added that lawmakers will be responsible for any costs incurred in trying to get them back in attendance.

August 18, 2025

From a cell phone ban to Ten Commandments posters, new state laws bring big changes to Texas schools

Starting Sept. 1, public education in Texas will see some big changes thanks to the 2025 legislative session. They include teacher pay raises, more oversight on library materials, classroom posters with the Ten Commandments, bans on cell phones and DEI programs, and more.
Here are the highlights:

$8.5 billion boost will pay for teacher raises and more: House Bill 2 sets up a long-term teacher pay raise system, among other things. Teachers will get raises based on their experience and the size of the district they work in. The law also expands the Teacher Incentive Allotment, which rewards teachers who can show they’ve improved academic performance.
Students will be banned from using their cell phones: House Bill 1481 will limit students from using personal wireless devices during school hours. Districts will have to implement disciplinary measures for students who don’t follow the policy. Students will be able to use their phones outside of school hours.
Ten Commandments law pushes religion in public schools: Senate Bill 10 requires classrooms to display poster-sized copies of the Ten Commandments. Schools must accept and hang the posters if they are privately donated, but don’t require districts to buy the materials.
Lawmakers extend DEI ban to K-12 grades: Senate Bill 12 blocks schools from considering race, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation in hiring or training practices. Critics argue that the legislation disproportionately targets marginalized groups, especially LGBTQ+ students, and could limit students’ sense of belonging and harm their mental health. They also worry the legislation could lead teachers to self-censor. This comes after Senate Bill 17 passed two years ago, which got rid of DEI offices, programs and training at public Texas universities.
School boards and parents will have more oversight on library materials: Senate Bill 13 will allow parents and school boards to challenge any school library material. It will also ban schools from keeping materials that have “indecent content or profane content.
Schools will have more flexibility with disciplinary actions: House Bill 6 expands when schools can employ out-of-school suspensions for Texas’ youngest and homeless students. The legislation undoes state laws from 2017 and 2019 that put restrictions on how and when those students can be disciplined. Schools can also teach students in alternative education programs remotely — a mode of instruction that was shown to contribute to learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic. The law also extends how long students can face in-school suspensions — from three days to as long as schools see fit, as long as the placement is reviewed every 10 days.

August 17, 2025

Vaccine exemption requests in Texas spike in July, as some experts fear more families will opt out

The new school year is starting with an increasing number of Texas parents asking for vaccine exemption forms, and a new law will make those documents even easier to get a hold of.

Funding cuts to public vaccination programs, the chilling effects of immigration policies on health care and the tired battle by school nurses to balance parental consent with public health all mean school districts are on track to have the lowest vaccination rates in decades if those exemptions keep climbing.

Requests for vaccine exemption forms to the Texas Department of State Health Services have doubled from 45,900 in 2018 to 93,000 in 2024.

This July, Texas received 17,197 requests for a vaccine exemption form, 36% higher than the number reported in July 2023. Each requestor can fill out forms for up to eight people, so the number of children those forms covered also soared: from 23,231 in 2023 to 30,596 in 2025.

Vaccine experts fear herd immunity will be tougher to achieve once a new Sept. 1 law makes the vaccine exemption form downloadable instead of being mailed. Some public health departments also say the number of poor children who get vaccinated drops during the summer months.

But some people say fears are being overblown. Rebecca Hardy, president of Texans for Vaccine Choice, who successfully lobbied for the easier exemption process, said she hasn’t seen an increase in interest in the exemption forms.

Yearly, many of Texas’ school-age children who have no health insurance or who are covered by Medicaid turn to public health departments for their vaccinations. Dallas and Austin public health officials have reported some decreases in visits to summer vaccination clinics. Experts believe threats of ICE arrests and deportations are pushing more undocumented children and their parents to stay away from getting vaccinated.

August 15, 2025

Texas students’ STAAR scores for this year are out. Here’s how your school or district did.

New scores on the state’s standardized test released on Friday show a slight improvement in both students’ reading and math scores over last year when math scores slipped.

The share of students meeting grade-level standards rose this year from 53% to 54% in reading and from 41% to 43% in math.

Students’ performance on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exam is a window into their proficiency in math and reading skills — skills they’ll need to succeed after high school.

Early literacy can be a strong predictor of educational attainment and academic performance later in life. And having solid math skills early on sets up a pipeline to high-paying, in-demand STEM jobs.

August 14, 2025

Abbott ready to call another special session, plan to attend Saturday’s rally at the state Capitol against Trump’s power grab

With dozens of Democratic legislators remaining out of state to prevent the Texas House from passing the Republican congressional redistricting bill for President Trump, House and Senate leaders planned to end the first special session tomorrow, a few days before its mandatory adjournment date next Tuesday.

Gov. Abbott said he would immediately call another 30-day special session to try again to redraw Texas congressional districts to give Republicans five more seats at the expense of five Democratic incumbents. The goal of the election-rigging effort is to help Trump keep the Republican majority in the U.S. House — and support for his hurtful, anti-education, anti-democratic policies — during next year’s midterm elections.

Abbott said he also would include legislation addressing the July 4 floods, replacing the STAAR test, the controversy over THC products and other issues that were in the first special session’s call on the new session’s agenda. The Senate passed the redistricting bill and a bill replacing STAAR during the first special session, but they died in the House, which couldn’t conduct business after the Democrats left the state.

Plan to attend a rally against the Trump-Abbott takeover attempt at the state Capitol at 11 a.m. Saturday.

August 13, 2025

Trump vowed to end “wasteful” federal spending; beloved Texas school programs got caught in the middle

From the start, Na’Siah Martin and H’Sanii Blankenship’s July trip to Washington, D.C., was destined to be a riveting stop on the teenagers’ passage to adulthood. There were the scheduled meetings with lawmakers, the monuments, the reflecting pool near where Martin Luther King Jr. broadcast his dream for racial equality 62 summers ago.

For years, the pair have been involved in the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Austin Area, the revered summer and after-school program that was now making it possible for the two blossoming leaders to meet with Texans in Congress and present their game plan for tackling mental health challenges among student-athletes, a struggle both were deeply familiar with.

But two weeks before their arrival on Capitol Hill, President Donald Trump’s administration threw one of many curveballs lobbed during the first months of his second term. The U.S. Department of Education notified state education officials on the last day of June that it would pause the disbursement of nearly $7 billion in funds for teacher development, support for students learning English, and before- and after-school programs predominantly serving low-income families, pending a review of how schools had put the money to use. That notice went out a day before states expected to begin receiving the money.

August 12, 2025

Senate passes bill to replace STAAR, but measure will die in House as first special session ends

House and Senate leaders are expected to end the first special session Friday as Democratic House members continue to boycott the session to prevent passage of Trump’s congressional redistricting bill. Gov. Abbott has said he will immediately call another special session, and a STAAR replacement was expected to be on the agenda for the new session.

SB 8, approved by the Senate this week, would replace STAAR with three shorter tests to be administered at the beginning, the middle and the end of the school year. This would give teachers the opportunity to diagnose and work on addressing student weaknesses before the final test is taken, but as we reported last week TSTA has some concerns about it. A significant concern is that it would give too much power to the appointed education commissioner over the creation and administration of the new testing system.

The Senate bill also would allow writing portions of the tests to be graded by Artificial Intelligence, despite serious questions that have been raised about AI’s effectiveness. And it would restrict school districts’ ability to challenge what they consider inaccurate A-F accountability grades.

August 11, 2025

After local agencies release Uvalde shooting records, calls continue for Texas DPS to follow suit

Records released this week provide more details about campus safety concerns raised before the deadly 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde and include some surviving teachers’ accounts that school leaders didn’t check on them after they were injured and traumatized.

The documents from Uvalde County and the school district also indicate that the 18-year-old shooter had behavioral and attendance issues before he dropped out of high school, and that his mother had told sheriff’s deputies that she was scared of him.

The county and Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District released the materials — nearly 12 gigabytes — as part of a settlement agreement in a yearslong lawsuit that news organizations, including ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, brought against state and local governments.

August 8, 2025

Texas State System dissolves faculty senates, eroding professors’ influence on campuses

Professors across the Texas State University System are about to lose their formal voice in campus decision-making — at least temporarily.

The system is allowing faculty senates — bodies made up of professors who approve and advise university leaders on curricula, faculty hiring and other academic issues — to be abolished under a new state law, creating a gap in faculty representation that other public university systems are actively trying to avoid.

The law, Senate Bill 37, is part of a broader effort by Republican lawmakers to assert more control over public universities following years of clashes with faculty over issues like tenure, diversity initiatives and academic freedom. It requires boards of regents to either authorize significantly restructured faculty senates or allow existing ones to be abolished on Sept. 1.

On Friday, the system’s board of regents updated its rules to comply with the legislation and gave university presidents the authority to develop new faculty advisory groups. The board did not authorize any existing senates, which means they will lapse on Sept. 1.

August 7, 2025

STAAR test repeal approved by Senate Education Committee

The Senate Committee on Education K-16 heard invited and public testimony Wednesday on Senate Bill 8, which would eliminate the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) test, replacing it with more frequent exams to measure student growth. The committee voted unanimously to send the bill to the Senate floor.

The STAAR test was first implemented in 2012 and is a once yearly standardized test offered to students starting in 3rd grade and continuing through high school in certain subjects. The legislature considered a bill during the 2025 regular session to eliminate the test, with proponents of the bill arguing that the test puts pressure on students and prevents districts from consistently measuring outcomes.

SB 8 would eliminate the STAAR test and maintain the existing Beginning of Year (BOY), Middle of Year (MOY) and End of Year (EOY) tests, which will measure student growth across the year as opposed to just pass or failure.

The BOY and MOY tests would also be adaptive, meaning the questions change depending on if the question before it is answered correctly or not. This format allows the tests to produce more data with fewer questions. The tests also deliver results more quickly, within as few as two days, which proponents say allows parents to have more time to discuss results with teachers and improve their child’s learning.

August 5, 2025

Texas lawmakers propose replacing STAAR exam with three shorter tests

Lawmakers in the Texas House and Senate introduced Monday similar bills to scrap the state’s standardized test, signaling newfound agreement between chamber leaders to finish a task they left incomplete earlier this year.

This year’s special legislative session is legislators’ second chance to revamp the test after negotiations between chambers on STAAR broke down in the final hours of the regular session.

But whether they’ll succeed remains uncertain. The proposal — like every other bill under consideration during the special session — is in limbo after Texas House Democrats fled the state over redistricting, depriving the chamber of the number of members required to advance any legislation.

Getting rid of STAAR is a popular idea among legislators. Many of their constituents have criticized the pressures students face taking the hours-long, end-of-the-year test, which is used to grade their school’s performance. The Texas Education Agency has insisted the test is a reliable tool to measure academic achievement.

August 4, 2025

Senate panel OKs latest bill restricting use of government and school bathrooms by transgender people

The Texas Senate State Affairs committee on Monday again approved a “bathroom bill” proposal that would restrict transgender people from using bathrooms in government and school buildings that match their identifying gender.

Senate Bill 7 is one of two bills currently filed in the Texas Legislature after Gov. Greg Abbott put the provisions on the special session agenda. The bill would mandate that people only use restrooms in government buildings and schools that match their sex assigned at birth. Similar restrictions would also be placed on prisons and women’s violence shelters based on biological sex, which the bill also defines.

Supporters of SB 7 and similar legislation have framed the bill as a way to protect women from discomfort and predation in private spaces. The bill’s author, Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, said the bill was common sense that upheld “biological and biblical truths.” To do this, Middleton said the bill has greater enforcement capabilities than previous bills: SB 7 institutes a $5,000 first-time fine for agencies or schools where violations occur, which increases to a $25,000 fine for subsequent violations.

A committee substitute that was filed Monday contained a provision mandating that the 15th Court of Appeals have exclusive jurisdiction to any civil action brought from the bill, and added its own definitions of male and female.

July 30, 2025

A fight to save an Austin middle school puts families at odds with Texas over how to rate schools

Julieta Crispín Castro arrived early for her first day of summer camp, ready to prepare for the state’s standardized test, when the 13-year-old learned that one of her favorite people at Dobie Middle School would not be around next fall.

“I’m not qualified to come back,” English language arts teacher Tatiana Brown-Gomez told Crispín, borrowing language the Austin school district used to explain why she was laid off as part of a sweeping staff shakeup.

Crispín’s face deflated.

“What? That doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

The Austin Independent School District fired Brown-Gomez, a handful of other teachers and the principal after Texas gave Dobie two consecutive F ratings under its accountability system, a state tool largely based on scores from STAAR, the state’s standardized test.

Five Fs at a single campus is all it takes for the state to oust democratically elected school trustees and take over an entire district, like the Texas Education Agency did with the Houston school district.

For months, an initial threat to close Dobie and the staffing changes that followed, all to avoid a state takeover, have roiled the Rundberg neighborhood Dobie anchors in northeast Austin. Parents and advocates say the school is the heartbeat of a community made up of working-class immigrants and refugees.

“The school has been there for 50 years. It’s a part of the community,” said Irma Castanon, who runs a Girl Scout troop on campus for Dobie students, many of whom are her daughter’s friends. “That’s where all our kids go to school.”

July 29, 2025

Texas House Democrats are fundraising to potentially leave the state to block GOP-backed redistricting

As Republicans in Texas move ahead with a plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts, Democrats are privately considering their options, including an expensive and legally dicey quorum break.

What’s a quorum break? It’s the act of fleeing the state to deprive the Legislature of enough members to function.

What are the consequences? Democrats would each incur a fine of $500 per day and face the threat of arrest.

Is there a way around the fines? If they go that route, it appears deep-pocketed donors within the party are ready to cover these expenses, according to three people involved in the discussions. The donors’ willingness to foot the bill eliminates a major deterrent to walking out — the personal financial cost — and could embolden Democrats who might otherwise hesitate.

Are there other obstacles? Donors and members planning to flee will also need to figure out how to skirt a Texas House rule prohibiting lawmakers from dipping into their campaign funds to pay the fines. Two people involved in the latest fundraising strategy sessions, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations, claim their legal teams have found a way to disburse the funds to the members but declined to provide any additional details.

July 28, 2025

5 Tips for Teachers to Save on Classroom Supplies This Year

“How can I use this in my classroom?”

That’s a mindset shared by Robin Palomares, an elementary English-for-speakers-of-other-languages teacher at the Commodore John Rodgers School in Baltimore, and one that she says resonates with many educators as they try to stock their classrooms without spending a fortune.

Teachers have long provided their classrooms with essential supplies and decorations, typically spending more than $655 each year, to create a space where students can thrive.

But this year, with the threat of new tariffs increasing the cost of many imported goods, back-to-school shopping could push educators to spend even more.

In early April, President Donald Trump announced a 10% baseline tariff on imports from nearly every nation, with even higher rates for certain countries. Days later, he delayed the higher tariffs for targeted countries by 90 days, before pushing the effective date to Aug. 1.

The Consumer Price Index, which measures the average price of daily expenses, grew to 2.7% in June after rising to 2.4% in May, as some economists say the slight price hike can be attributed to potential tariffs. Despite the tariffs not yet being in effect and ongoing trade negotiations, some companies have already announced plans to raise their prices, citing the looming tariffs.

A recent CNBC analysis found that prices for supplies like lead pencils and art materials rose about four percentage points since the start of 2024. Marking tools increased by more than six percentage points.

To help ease the financial burden, here are five tips educators can use to save money this back-to-school season… Read more

July 26, 2025

Undocumented Youth Barred From Head Start, Early College

A new Trump administration policy has barred undocumented students from accessing a variety of federally funded services. Those include Head Start—the preschool program for children from families living in poverty—and dual enrollment and early college programs.

The notice has left school districts and Head Start programs uncertain about how to proceed. They’re not sure how they will logistically collect immigration status, and many are worried about declining enrollment among families still eligible for the program, such as immigrant families here with legal residency. Those declines could impact overall program budgets.

Meanwhile, 21 Democratic attorneys general have sued the Trump administration, asking a judge to halt the new policy.

July 25, 2025

Trump Releases Some Funds, But Schools Remain in Limbo

The Trump administration released $1.4 billion in federal funding for before- and after-school programs on Monday—with the condition that states now certify compliance with federal civil rights laws.

The fate of the remaining $5 billion in frozen federal funds remains unclear. And school district leaders say they may have to cut staff to make ends meet if the money doesn’t arrive, according to a new survey by AASA, the School Superintendents Association. Large majorities of survey respondents said they will likely have to cut academic supports for students (like literacy and math coaches) and professional development for staff.

“Without this support, our progress in closing achievement gaps and promoting academic success is at serious risk,” said Sharlene McDonald, the superintendent of the Tarrant City schools in Alabama.

Meanwhile, Education Week asked 271 members of Congress—everyone who voted for the March spending package that included these federal funds—whether they thought the Trump administration has the legal authority to withhold the money. Just six members, five Republicans and one Democrat, answered the request.

July 24, 2025

Texas again trying to restrict the bathrooms transgender people can use

Legislation identical to two failed regular session bills seeking to restrict what bathrooms transgender people can use in government and school buildings have been filed in the Texas House and Senate after Gov. Greg Abbott outlined the restrictions as a special session priority.

State Sen. Mayes Middleton filed Senate Bill 7 on Thursday, days after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick indicated the Galveston Republican would carry the special session’s “bathroom bill.” The bill is identical to House Bill 32, filed by Rep. Valoree Swanson, R-Spring, as well as Senate Bill 240 filed by Middleton during the regular session. Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, is also listed as a coauthor for SB 7.

SB 7 and HB 32 would mandate that multiuse bathrooms at K-12 schools, public universities and state and municipal government buildings only be used by people of one sex or another, as indicated on their birth certificate. Violating the provision would carry a $5,000 first-time fine and $25,000 for any subsequent violations.

The bills also would disallow trans people from being housed in jails and prisons matching their identifying gender and would turn away trans women from women’s violence shelters. Attorney General Ken Paxton would be given oversight to investigate complaints about alleged violations, according to the bill.

Legislation restricting bathroom usage was placed on the special session agenda by Abbott, with the goal of “protecting women’s privacy in sex-segregated spaces.” SB 7 and HB 32 aim to uphold that ideal, as both are dubbed the “Texas Women’s Privacy Act.”

During the regular session this year, SB 240 passed along party lines and was sent to the House, where neither it nor its House equivalent, House Bill 239, received a hearing. But representatives in the lower chamber had hinted at their appetite for the proposal in March, when a majority of the House signed on as co-authors to HB 239. HB 32 currently has Swanson listed as the sole author of the legislation.

Middleton, R-Galveston, was not immediately available for a request for comment, according to a spokesperson with his office.

Efforts to pass a bathroom bill have risen and fallen since 2017, when similar legislation was also placed on a special session agenda before failing to garner enough support. The new bills are more robust than their 2017 counterparts, however, as the proposed $5,000 fine is higher than Senate Bill 6’s $1,000 proposal and have provisions that may insulate the bill from legal challenges, should it be passed.

July 23, 2025

How the Texas DEI ban will change public schools

When Texas public school students return for classes this fall, their clubs and classrooms will be subject to a new DEI ban.

Senate Bill 12 — signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott — prohibits diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in K-12 schools. It builds on a previous law that bans DEI work in higher education.

“Our schools should be about teaching history and reading, writing and math and civic responsibility,” Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Allen, said as he advocated for the bill in the Legislature. “We need to get away from some of the more toxic social issues.”

The law’s Sept. 1 implementation date has already triggered changes in Dallas ISD and other districts across the state.

Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas have threatened to sue based on the new requirements, calling elements of the law unconstitutional.

ACLU of Texas attorney Brian Klosterboer said in a statement that it sends a “false message” that students of color and LGBTQ children don’t belong in the classroom.

The Texas Legislature is back for a special session

It’s day one of the 2025 special legislative session. Texas lawmakers have 30 days to work through a crowded agenda set by Gov. Greg Abbott — largely focusing on two items: the response to Central Texas floods that killed more than 100 people, including dozens of children, and a redrawing of the state’s congressional districts, as ordered by President Donald Trump.

Legislators seem to be in agreement that they must pass laws aimed at preventing another disaster like the one that hit Hill Country, which has become one of the deadliest floods in modern Texas history and raised questions about emergency preparedness for the millions of Texans who live in flood-prone areas.

Another top issue: addressing consumable hemp-derived products that offer a similar high to cannabis and are widely available in Texas due to a loophole in an older law.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the Senate’s top brass, and Abbott disagree on how to address regulation. Patrick is championing a total ban on the products, drawing rare criticism from the Republican party and an even more rare veto from the governor.

Texas Republicans are heading into an overtime session after already scoring a number of wins over the regular 140-day session. Abbott is looking to add to that victory streak on his conservative agenda, like requiring people to use bathrooms that align with the sex they were assigned at birth and cracking down on the manufacturing and distribution of abortion pills — that failed in the regular session.

Democrats and Republicans are both waiting to see how aggressive the redistricting effort will be. Trump is pushing for a five-seat pickup, but it is not entirely clear whose seats will be targeted — or a map could be drawn without endangering GOP incumbents.

July 18, 2025

Nearly 2 million Texans could lose health coverage under expiring tax credits, ACA changes in GOP megabill

Nearly 4 million Texans signed up for ACA health plans this year, a high-water mark in the marketplace’s 12-year history. But between the looming expiration of Biden-era enhanced premium tax credits — which lower out-of-pocket costs for people with marketplace coverage — and changes in the recently passed GOP megabill, the state’s uninsured population is expected to spike.

Up to 1.7 million Texans are expected to lose their health insurance through coming changes to the Affordable Care Act marketplace under Republicans’ tax and spending megabill, according to an analysis by health policy experts — a serious blow to a state health care system already strained by the highest uninsured rate in the nation.

The effects could reverberate across the health care landscape, with higher premiums, more financial strain on hospitals and destabilized insurance marketplaces, experts said.

Because Texas never expanded Medicaid to people earning above the federal poverty level — as 40 other states have done — the ACA marketplace has been an enormous driver of coverage, particularly among lower-income people. Texas’ uninsured rate fell from 23.7 percent in 2010 to 17.4 percent by 2023, with ACA enrollment contributing significantly.

July 17, 2025

Nearly 600 National, State, and Local Groups Urge Immediate Release of Withheld Federal Education Funds, Warn of Widespread Harm to Schools, Students, and Communities

Today, a broad coalition of nearly 600 nonpartisan organizations representing educators, families, and learners in every state and the District of Columbia issued a united call to the
U.S. Department of Education and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to immediately disburse over $6.8 billion in legally obligated federal education funds that remain unjustifiably withheld from states.

The letter, signed by national groups representing parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, summer and afterschool programs, literacy groups, music and the arts groups, and adult education organizations, along with hundreds of state and local organizations, underscores the severe disruption caused by the Department’s failure to release critical funding under multiple federal education programs.

“These programs serve more than 95,000 K-12 schools and 55 million students, as well as 1.2 million adult learners. The delays are forcing schools to lay off staff, cancel professional development, eliminate afterschool and summer programs, and scramble to prepare for the upcoming school year without the resources they were promised,” the coalition warned.

Read the statement

July 16, 2025

The Latest on the $6.8 Billion School Funding Freeze

It’s been nearly three weeks since states and school districts learned they wouldn’t be getting an expected $6.8 billion in federal funding. The money, which had been allocated by Congress, was frozen by the Trump administration as part of an “ongoing programmatic review” to root out spending related to a “radical left-wing agenda.” The frozen funds were meant for teacher professional development, before- and after-school programs, academic enrichment, English-learner services, migrant education, and adult education.

Here are the week’s big developments:

Two dozen Democratic states sued the Trump administration on Monday, arguing that it violated federal laws and the U.S. Constitution by withholding the funds. Then, on Wednesday, 10 Republican senators called for the Trump administration to unfreeze the money, arguing that withholding it “denies states and communities the opportunity to pursue localized initiatives to support students and their families.”

Are you worried about the withheld funding? Here are five tips on how to advocate for the money’s release.

July 14, 2025

Mental health programs could bear the brunt of $600M federal cuts to Texas schools

Multiple mental health programs, particularly those that were put in place in response to the pandemic and mass shootings, are at risk of losing funding as Texas schools face at least $600 million in federal funding cuts.

On the chopping block are school programs like those focused on chronic absenteeism, mental wellness and crisis services that were created in response to the Uvalde school shooting, as well as social workers and counselors for students.

Data shows two federal programs that are at risk of being cut or strictly regulated account for 86% of the school mental health funding for more than 2,500 campuses statewide, according to Mental Health America of Greater Houston. Texas schools rely heavily on federal funding to support their mental health programs.

During this legislative session, school districts and advocacy groups pushed for more money through dedicated sources as they braced for the expiration of COVID-19 relief funding. But lawmakers didn’t approve it.

Right now, school receive some mental health money as part of school safety funding they receive, but school districts usually spend that allotment on school security.

“I don’t want to get into a situation where I am asking, do I hire a police officer or do I hire a counselor? I want them both,” said Adrian Johnson, superintendent for the Hearne school district.

The downward spiral of putting mental health on the back burner until tragedy hits is unsustainable, according to education advocates, who say it’s time for funding dedicated to school mental health.

July 10, 2025

Abbott orders special session on Hill Country flooding, redistricting, THC and unfinished GOP priorities

Greg Abbott on Wednesday unveiled a jam-packed agenda for the upcoming special legislative session, calling on lawmakers to redraw Texas’ congressional maps and address several unfinished conservative priorities from earlier this year.

The governor, who controls the agenda for overtime legislative sessions, also included four items related to the deadly Hill Country floods over the July Fourth weekend, directing legislators to look at flood warning systems, emergency communications, natural disaster preparation and relief funding for impacted areas.

The flooding has killed more than 100 people, with more than 160 still missing in Kerr County alone.

Abbott’s call also includes redrawing the state’s congressional districts — following through on a demand from President Donald Trump’s advisers, who want to fortify Republicans’ slim majority in the U.S. House by carving out more GOP seats in Texas. Republicans in Texas’ congressional delegation have expressed unease about the idea, worrying it could jeopardize control of their current districts.

July 9, 2025

Texas Education Agency to release schools’ 2024 performance ratings after court ruling

A state appeals court has ruled the Texas Education Agency can release its 2024 ratings of the state’s school districts, overturning a previous ruling in a legal battle that has stretched nearly two years.

Several Texas school districts had sued against the release of last year’s accountability scores over concerns about education officials rolling out an automated computer system to grade the state’s standardized tests.

On July 3, the 15th Court of Appeals — all Republicans appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott — granted the state approval to release the 2024 scores after doing the same for 2023 ratings in April. Previously, it ruled that TEA Commissioner Mike Morath did not overstep his authority when he changed the college readiness metrics that help determine schools’ performance ratings.

This time, the court similarly found “no evidence” supporting claims that issuing the 2024 ratings went beyond the commissioner’s authority. In a written opinion, Chief Justice Scott Brister declared that “it is time for local courts to stop obstructing those policies,” while acknowledging how Texans rely on the accountability system to assess public school performance. Read more

July 7, 2025

Hill Country flooding: Here’s how to give and receive help

The Texas Hill Country is reeling after a devastating flood with a confirmed death toll of at least 68 people were killed by the flooding in Kerr County, Sheriff Larry Leitha said. At least 11 additional deaths were confirmed in surrounding counties, pushing the storm’s overall toll to 79.

Rescue efforts are still underway as authorities search for 10 girls who went missing from Camp Mystic, a long-running Christian camp. With families turning to social media for answers, officials warn the full scope of the disaster may not be known yet.

As rescue efforts continue in Kerrville, questions are arising about how to assist those affected by the flood. Here is a guide on how you can help those in need, along with safety tips for dealing with flood warnings and what to do when you encounter flood waters.

July 5, 2025

Number of El Paso children drops by 12,000 in four years

The number of El Paso County children age 17 and younger fell by more than 12,000 between 2020 and 2024, according to recently released estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The population estimates reinforce trends seen in county schools, which have struggled with declining enrollment. The new estimates, released last week, also show El Paso’s population aging, though still younger than state and Texas averages.

El Paso is seeing declines in children, little change in young adults, slight growth in adults 25-44, a flat trend for adults approaching retirement, and strong growth among seniors, the estimates show.

Previously released census data has shown strong migration away from El Paso – where average private sector wages are less than two-thirds of state and national levels. The census figures show a net loss for El Paso of just under 18,000 people over the past four years in movement to and from other U.S. counties.

July 4, 2025

Texas’ public ed funding boost brings some relief but erodes districts’ independence, school leaders say

A funding boost to the tune of $8.5 billion would usually be a cause for widespread celebration among Texas public schools. But in the wake of the 2025 legislative session, the mood of district leaders and educators is more lukewarm than triumphant.

Not because they aren’t grateful for new money to raise teacher salaries, improve special education services and make schools safer. It is because Texas lawmakers imposed stricter guardrails on how the state’s more than 1,200 school systems can use the dollars.

The new funding setup marked a drastic departure from the spending flexibility schools have long enjoyed, and for many, the change was the latest indication that state leaders do not trust districts to govern themselves effectively.

“We are a very independent state. The people are very independent. … And yet, that’s not the approach they’re taking with public education,” said Casey Adams, superintendent of the 170-student Woodson Independent School District, a rural community near Abilene. “Why call us independent school districts if you’re not going to give us the local control and ability to do what we need to do? I think everybody I’ve talked to feels strongly that way.”

July 3, 2025

Wealthy families are buying homes to get in-state tuition at Texas universities

This was not a luxury apartment. The place had popcorn ceilings, laminate countertops and faux marble bathroom sinks. The vinyl flooring was warped in places.

Two recent graduates from UT Austin had moved out weeks before. Hired cleaners hadn’t come yet, so there was a layer of scum on the bathroom mirror and a damp smell the realtor blamed on old ventilation, but which he later deemed West Campus’ signature scent: beer, vomit and shoddy attempts to clean up both.

“You’ll smell it,” said Miller Gill, the realtor tasked with selling the 750-square-foot condo last month.

But Gill wasn’t worried about his bottom line. The week before, a family from New Jersey agreed to buy the place. To them, and to many others across the country, this 1980s condo was worth more than its parts; it was a ticket to a cheaper college education.

June 28, 2025

Texas education board approves Native Studies course, skirting concerns about state’s K-12 DEI ban

The Texas State Board of Education on Friday renewed an elective course that teaches high school students about the history and cultures of Indigenous peoples, overcoming criticism from some Republican members about potentially violating a state ban on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

The American Indian/Native Studies course gained reapproval on a bipartisan 9-5 vote, a long-awaited decision that will allow Texas public schools to offer the class for state credits. Republicans LJ Francis, Brandon Hall, Tom Maynard, Julie Pickren and Audrey Young voted against it.

Advocates for the ethnic studies course have repeatedly shown up to quarterly state board meetings throughout the last year, pleading for Republican board chair Aaron Kinsey, who did not cast a vote, to put it on the panel’s agenda. The Grand Prairie Independent School District, near Dallas, is the only district to have piloted the class. Friday’s vote opens it up to the rest of the state.

The move still falls short of calls to make the class’ teachings an official component of the state standards for what students are expected to learn. But the decision to keep it as an elective course that school districts can offer marks a noteworthy development in a state that has clamped down on efforts to make public education more inclusive.

June 27, 2025

Proposed Pell Grant cuts threaten college access for nearly 500,000 Texas college students

Nearly half a million Texas students stand to get less help paying for college because of aggressive cuts federal lawmakers are considering to a critical financial aid program.

The country’s lowest-income students depend on the Pell Grant to get through college. It is the largest source of grant aid in Texas.

But a U.S. House proposal in the massive budget package President Donald Trump is dubbing the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” would take significant chunks out of Pell. The Senate is facing pressure from the White House to vote on the bill this weekend.

If it becomes law, the maximum Pell Grant award would drop by about $1,500 and be restricted to students who complete 30 credits per year, a stricter requirement than the current 24 credits. It would also eliminate eligibility for Pell for students who are enrolled less than half-time.

June 26, 2025

Christian parents sue to stop Ten Commandments requirement in Texas schools

A group of faith leaders and parents from North Texas this week sued to stop a new state law that will require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, arguing it violates their First Amendment and parental rights.

The plaintiffs filed the suit Tuesday in a Dallas federal court on behalf of their 10 children who attend schools in the Dallas, DeSoto and Lancaster Independent School Districts, whose boards are all named as defendants.

The suit challenges one of the latest measures that state lawmakers have passed that critics say inject religion into the state’s public schools, attended by roughly 5.5 million children.

Senate Bill 10, by Republican Sen. Phil King of Weatherford, would require the Ten Commandments be displayed on a poster sized at least 16 by 20 inches come September when most new state laws go into effect. Gov. Greg Abbott signed it last week.

June 25, 2025

Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles receives $82,000 raise with 5-year contract extension

Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles, a state-appointed leader who has become a polarizing figure among district stakeholders, will receive a raise of $82,000 per year under a five-year contract extension approved by the board of managers last Thursday.

The approval of the new contract — which increases Miles’ annual salary from $380,000 to $462,000 — comes less than a month after Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath replaced four of the nine members on the board of managers and said the state’s ongoing takeover of HISD would last until at least 2027. The revamped board also unanimously approved a $2.1 billion budget for the 2025-26 school year at last week’s meeting.

In a statement, board president Ric Campo said Miles’ contract was extended to ensure the district’s continued transformation.

“The new contract also maintains rigorous evaluation criteria and compensation that aligns the HISD superintendent position with comparable school districts in Texas,” Campo said. “The HISD Board is proud of the incredible success of HISD students, and with Superintendent Miles’ ongoing leadership, we look forward to continued progress.”

Miles’ new base salary will make him among the highest-paid superintendents in the state, according to Texas Education Agency data for the 2024-25 school year. With his previous salary, Miles was ranked 14th statewide.

According to the TEA, the highest-paid superintendent during the 2024-25 school year was Randall Meyer from Victoria ISD, near Corpus Christi, with a base salary of $565,047. The highest-paid superintendent in the Houston area last year was Barbers Hill ISD’s Greg Poole with a base salary of $489,143. In Harris County, the highest-paid superintendent last year was Martha Salazar-Zamora of Tomball ISD with a base salary of $469,638.

June 24, 2025

Greg Abbott vetoes funding for federal summer lunch program

Governor Greg Abbott has vetoed a $60 million budget measure that would have allowed Texas to enter a federal summer lunch program for low-income children.

The Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer, or Summer EBT program would have given qualifying families $120 per child to pay for lunches during the summer months in 2027. An estimated 3.75 million children statewide would have qualified.

The provision to join the program was tucked inside the state’s budget bill, Senate Bill 1. Texas would have had to pay part of the administration costs to tap into at least $400 million in federal support that would have paid for the lunch subsidies. But Abbott struck the provision in a list of vetoes released on Sunday.

“… There is significant uncertainty regarding federal matching rates for this and other similar programs,” the governor stated as his reason to reject the budget rider. “Once there is more clarity about the long-term fiscal ramifications for creating such a program, the Legislature can reconsider funding this item.”

June 23, 2025

These child care advocates say Texas lawmakers didn’t do enough for children with disabilities

Texas lawmakers this year added $100 million to a scholarship fund to help families across the state pay for early child care, 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.

“Most families with children with disabilities are really struggling in one area, if not multiple,” said Bethany Edwards, director for research and evaluation at the Center for Transforming Lives, a North Texas nonprofit that helps single mothers. Edwards is also a parent of a child with disabilities.

“And there’s a lot that can happen from a policy standpoint to change these systems, but change seems to happen very slowly,” she said. Read more

June 22, 2025

SCOTUS Allows States to Ban Gender-Affirming Care for Minors

On June 18th, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s law banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors in a 6-3 decision.

The majority ruled that the Tennessee law does not draw classifications on the basis of sex, but on the basis of age and medical use. This reasoning, as dubious as it is, meant that the majority did not reach the issue of whether transgender individuals are a protected suspect or quasi-suspect class. The ruling, therefore, does not preclude litigants in other cases from continuing to challenge laws targeting transgender individuals as unconstitutional. However, the impact of the ruling will be devastating for the ability of transgender youth and their families to seek and obtain gender-affirming medical care. Twenty-seven states now ban such care, although two court orders (Arkansas and Montana) have prevented the bans from going into effect. Litigation in these and other states over the issue will certainly continue. Read more

June 21, 2025

Texas will require public school classrooms to display Ten Commandments under bill signed by governor

Come September, every public school classroom will be required to display the Ten Commandments — part of a larger push in Texas and beyond to increase the role of religion in schools.

On Saturday, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 10, despite a federal court ruling that a similar Louisiana law violated a constitutionally required separation of church and state. In May, the proposal passed the Senate 28-3.

The bill preliminarily passed the House 88-49 on the Jewish Sabbath day. The Ten Commandments forbids work on that day, Rep. James Talarico noted in an effort to highlight legislative hypocrisy. The lower chamber’s initial approval came after more than two hours of debate and despite last-ditch Democratic efforts to water down the law, including giving school districts the opportunity to vote on the policy, and adding codes of ethics from different faiths into the bill.

The House passed the bill 82-46, but clarified in it that the state would be responsible for any legal fees if a school district were to be sued over the policy.

Sponsored by Sen. Phil King, a Republican from Weatherford, the bill requires every classroom to visibly display a poster sized at least 16 by 20 inches. The poster can’t include any text other than the language laid out in the bill, and no other similar posters may be displayed. Read more

June 20, 2025

Sign up to testify against charters

Six charter applicants move forward to the State Board of Education for a final vote on Friday, June 27. Public comments are scheduled for Wednesday, June 25. Please sign up to testify by Friday, June 20, TODAY, by 5pm CT.

Late registration is available on-site up to 30 minutes prior to the start of the meeting (by 8:30 AM on Wed, June 25).

Can’t make it to the hearing? Email members of the State Board of Education to express your concerns: https://osod.org/sboe-member-emails/

June 19, 2025

Once again targeting higher ed, Texas lawmakers limited faculty influence, campus speech this session

Texas Republican lawmakers continued their carrot-and-stick approach to higher education during this year’s legislative session, pressuring public universities into abandoning what they view as progressive policies.

As in 2023, they opened with threats to withhold hundreds of millions in funding unless universities aligned more closely with their conservative vision of higher education. In the end, lawmakers left that pool of money alone, but the pressure may help explain why university leaders held back from commenting publicly on some of the most controversial proposals brought forward this session.

One new law will shift power away from faculty — who have often resisted GOP leaders’ recent efforts to push schools to the right — by giving governor-appointed university regents more control over curriculum and hiring. It will also create an office to monitor schools’ compliance with the new law and the existing ban on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which could lead to funding cuts for schools found in violation.

Lawmakers also responded to pro-Palestinian protests with bills that limit how students can express themselves on campus and require schools to use a definition of antisemitism in disciplinary proceedings.

June 18, 2025

Join the National Day of Action and call your Senators today

The “Big Brutal Budget”—the one that means 16 million people will lose health coverage and will mean millions of families will lose SNAP benefits while some states could effectively end SNAP altogether. Most voters (53%) oppose this bill, according to recent polling from Quinnipiac University.

Call your Senators at 202-224-3121 and tell them to defend Medicaid, SNAP, and clean energy credits!

June 17, 2025

Texas students make gains in reading but struggle with math, STAAR scores show

Texas’ students saw some wins in reading but continued to struggle to bounce back from pandemic-related learning losses in math, state testing results released Tuesday showed.

Elementary students who took the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exam this year made the biggest gains in reading across grade levels. Third graders saw a three percentage point increase in reading, a milestone because early literacy is a strong indicator of future academic success. Progress among middle students in the subject, meanwhile, slowed. Read more

June 16, 2025

Tell Congress to protect immigrant communities and our right to protest

The Trump administration has escalated aggressive raids in immigrant communities in the Los Angeles area, inciting fear and panic over the condition of loved ones who have been detained in these U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.

In response to protests, President Trump on June 7 deployed the California National Guard, claiming the protests met the definition of a rebellion. He sent in about 700 U.S. Marines on June 9.

Protesters are subjected to rough handling, tear gas, and flash bang grenades. Some, including labor leader David Huerta, have been injured and hospitalized. After being discharged from the hospital, Huerta, president of the Service Employees International Union California (SEIU) and SEIU-United Service Workers West, was placed in federal custody simply for peacefully observing the raids. He has since been released.

No president has federalized the Guard without that state’s consent in 60 years. But Trump promises to “have troops everywhere” in response to even nonviolent demonstrations.

Military-style raids in workplaces and communities. Over-the-top responses to protesters who dare to stand up for American values. And promises of more to come.

Tell your senators and representative that these dangerous immigration raids and deplorable attempts to silence protest must be stopped.

June 15, 2025

Urge the Senate to Reject the House-Passed Budget Bill that Will Harm Students and Working Families

The bill the House GOP just passed is calling for trillions in tax cuts that heavily benefit billionaires—“paid for” with devastating cuts in education, health, and nutrition programs for students, working families, seniors, people with disabilities, veterans, and more.

Urge your Senators to reject these drastic policies that will devastate students and working class families.

June 13, 2025

Texas parents and teachers worry bills to root out liberal sway from public schools pave the way for conservative bias

Halcyon Ramsey, a mother of three children in the McKinney school district, is active in her kids’ elementary and middle schools. She knows how to reach administrators and has many teachers’ cellphone numbers. Ramsey values having a voice in what her children will be taught, especially when schools are preparing to discuss complex topics like sexuality.

“I get a permission slip, and then I have an opportunity to preview and see what they’re going to show to determine if I give my permission,” she said. “So as a parent, I feel like my rights are being acknowledged, because I have the option to opt out.”

During this year’s legislative session, Republican lawmakers championed several proposals advocating for parents’ right to guide their children’s education in public schools, a sentiment Ramsey agrees with. Supporters of the legislation say it will give parents more control over their children’s learning and push back against what they criticize as liberal bias in instruction.

But Ramsey worries that some new laws might do more harm than good.

Some teachers and parents note that Texas schools already have ways to take in feedback from families, and many work closely with parents in determining school activities and teaching plans. They say efforts to eliminate ideological bias in the classroom are contradicted by other conservative proposals approved this year that seek to push schools to the right. Ultimately, they warn, the proposals will further fan the flames of culture wars in schools, strain the trust between parents and teachers, and make it more difficult to navigate classroom instruction.

“I think when you have too many opinions and too many things involved, it muddies the water, then we don’t get anything done,” Ramsey said. Read more

June 12, 2025

Greg Abbott sends Texas National Guard to sites of planned immigration protests

Greg Abbott announced late Tuesday that he would deploy Texas National Guard troops across the state in anticipation of protests against federal deportation raids.

In a social media post, Abbott said the troop deployments were intended to “ensure peace & order.”

The news comes amid demonstrations against immigration raids that started in Los Angeles last week and have spread across the country, including to Texas. On Monday evening, hundreds of protesters gathered in downtown Austin for a march that ended in the arrest of thirteen people and police firing tear gas into a portion of the crowd that refused to leave.

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump deployed 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to protests there, doing so without permission from Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who appointed the state guard’s adjutant general. Newsom responded by accusing Trump of choosing “theatrics over public safety” and blaming him for escalating the “chaos and violence” that unfolded.

California officials on Monday sued the Trump administration in a bid to halt the deployment, calling it an “unprecedented usurpation of state authority and resources.”

Andrew Mahaleris, an Abbott spokesperson, confirmed Wednesday that Texas National Guard soldiers “are on standby in areas where mass demonstrations are planned in case they are needed.”

How to stay safe if you protest — or counterprotest — in Texas on “no kings day.”

June 11, 2025

Trans Texans brace for life under strict sex definition law

House Bill 229, which the governor is expected to sign into law, enforces a definition of sex based on the reproductive system someone was born with — women produce ova, men fertilize them. This definition could now be applied across state statute, leaving trans people and lawyers rushing to understand what exactly will change as a result of this law.

Compared to past legislative sessions, where battles over bathrooms, drag shows and gender-affirming care sparked dramatic showdowns between lawmakers and community members, the 2025 session was remarkably quiet.

But HB 229 and the handful of other bills that passed may end up having even more significant consequences for LGBTQ people than many people realize, said Sarah Corning, a legal fellow at the ACLU of Texas. The ripple effect will likely take years to sort out.

“The question of the hour is how will [HB] 229 be enforced and applied,” Corning said. “What we do know is that it’s incredibly disrespectful to so many Texans the Legislature represents, and completely disregards their identity.” Read more

June 9, 2025

Swift end of in-state tuition for undocumented students raises questions

It happened fast.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Texas over its long-standing state law allowing undocumented students to get in-state tuition. The lawsuit was barely on the books before Texas surrendered without a fight, asking a judge to strike down the law — which he did.

The whole lawsuit was closed out within hours, with both the U.S. attorney general and the Texas attorney general taking credit for the ruling.

It’s unusual to see a state work so closely with the federal government to use the courts to overturn a state law the Legislature had allowed to stand, legal experts say. It’s particularly surprising in Texas, a state with a proud history of battling the federal government and staking out aggressive positions on the limited role the feds should have within its borders. Read more

June 8, 2025

Houston No Kings protest planned to counter massive military parade on Trump’s birthday

Houston-area protesters are set to take to the streets Saturday as part of a planned nationwide No Kings protest to counter President Donald Trump’s multimillion dollar military parade in Washington, D.C.

Final preparations for the No Kings event follow violent protests of immigration raids in Los Angeles. To quell the uprising, Trump deployed the National Guard to subdue demonstrators with tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls, the Associated Press reported.

The No Kings rally will start at 10:00 a.m. Saturday at Houston City Hall, 901 Bagby, followed by a March at 11:00 a.m., according to the No Kings website.
Additional Houston-area protests are planned in Cypress, Sugar Land, Kingwood, League City and Katy, according to the No Kings website.

The No Kings event Saturday is part of a nationwide protest of Trump’s planned military parade in honor of the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary. The date also marks Trump’s 79th birthday. To join the protest, visit the No Kings website to find a rally near you.

June 7, 2025

Successful Teacher Residencies: What Matters and What Works

Across the country, districts and schools struggle with persistent teacher shortages. Many states have attempted to bolster the supply of teachers by loosening credentialing requirements or implementing fast-track programs that quickly bring new teachers into the classroom, often without student teaching or robust coursework about how to teach. However, underprepared teachers are not only less effective on average but also leave teaching at significantly higher rates than fully prepared teachers. The resulting teacher turnover, which is disproportionately experienced by underresourced schools, undermines student achievement and carries high costs for the schools and districts that need to replace the teachers who leave.

Read the full study

June 6, 2025

Education Department misses key deadline for delivering statistics report

For nearly 160 years, the federal government has been producing a statistical report on the condition and progress of education. In 2002, as part of the Education Sciences Reform Act, Congress gave the Education Department an annual deadline for that report: June 1. But no “Report on the Condition of Education” was delivered by June 1 of this year, the first time the Education Department has failed to meet this statutory obligation. Read more

June 5, 2025

Texas’ undocumented college students no longer qualify for in-state tuition

Undocumented students in Texas are no longer eligible for in-state tuition after Texas agreed Wednesday with the federal government’s demand to stop the practice.

The abrupt end to Texas’ 24-year-old law came hours after the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was suing Texas over its policy of letting undocumented students qualify for lower tuition rates at public universities. Texas quickly asked the court to side with the feds and find that the law was unconstitutional and should be blocked, which U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor did.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claimed credit for the outcome, saying in a statement Wednesday evening that “ending this discriminatory and un-American provision is a major victory for Texas,” echoing the argument made by Trump administration officials.

“Under federal law, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement Wednesday.

The federal government filed its lawsuit in the Wichita Falls division of the Northern District of Texas, where O’Connor hears all cases. O’Connor has long been a favored judge for the Texas attorney general’s office and conservative litigants.

Texas began granting in-state tuition to undocumented students in 2001, becoming the first state to extend eligibility. A bill to end this practice advanced out of a Senate committee for the first time in a decade this year but stalled before reaching the floor.

Before Wednesday’s ruling, Texas was one of 24 states, including the District of Columbia, to offer in-state tuition to undocumented students, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. Read more

June 4, 2025

Texas public schools are set to get an $8.5 billion funding boost

Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday signed into law a bill providing roughly $8.5 billion in new funding for Texas public schools, offering relief to districts for teacher and support staff pay, operational expenses, special education, educator preparation, early childhood learning and campus safety.

House Bill 2, which lawmakers have dubbed “historic” because it marks the largest one-time public education investment in recent memory, will arrive after years of stagnant funding. It will largely go into effect on Sept. 1

Here’s a breakdown of what the bill includes.

Teachers will receive long-term pay raises based on their years of experience and the size of their school district. Districts will also be given $45 per student to be used to increase the salaries of support staff.
Lawmakers expanded Texas’ Teacher Incentive Allotment, a state program that awards raises to teachers who demonstrate that they have improved their students’ academic performance.
School districts will not see a significant increase to their base funding per student, but will receive $106 per student in targeted funding for costs like transportation and utilities.
Special education funding will shift to a more equitable approach, with schools receiving dollars based on the individual needs of students with disabilities rather than the classroom setting where they receive instruction.
School districts must finalize plans to ensure that no educators without formal classroom training teach children in core subjects by the 2029-30 school year.
Texas’ youngest students’ reading and math skills will be assessed throughout the school year in hopes of providing targeted support to those falling behind.
Changes will be made to the state’s funding system for early learning that could help some schools fund full-day pre-K.
More funding will go toward helping districts fulfill safety mandates enacted by the Legislature after the Uvalde mass school shooting in 2022.

June 3, 2025

Republican-led 140-day legislative session pushes Texas to the right

Texas lawmakers gaveled out of their 140-day legislative session on Monday after passing a raft of conservative policies, from private school vouchers to tighter bail laws, that furthered the state’s march to the right.

The Legislature wrapped up without the same drama that defined the end of the last two sessions, when Democratic walkouts, a last-minute impeachment and unfinished priorities prompted overtime rounds of lawmaking.

This time, Gov. Greg Abbott checked off every item on his main to-do list. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the powerful hardline GOP Senate leader, accomplished the vast majority of his own priorities.

Democrats, on the other hand, had scattered wins. They were able to block a handful of Republican priorities and they pushed several major bipartisan measures — from funding for public schools to water infrastructure — that made it across the finish line. Read more

June 1, 2025

Bill to scrap STAAR test dies in the Texas Legislature

A legislative effort to scrap the STAAR test to respond to concerns that the test puts unnecessary pressure on students died in the last days of the legislative session.

House Bill 4, authored by state Rep. Brad Buckley, would have swapped the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness test for three shorter tests given throughout the school year.

The Senate and House failed to come out of closed-door negotiations with a compromise in time, missing a key legislative deadline this weekend.

Legislators in the House and Senate agreed that Texas schools needed to do away with the STAAR test. But in the end, the two chambers could not close the gulf over what they wanted to see out of the new test and from the A-F ratings system, which uses standardized test results to grade schools’ performance. Read more

May 31, 2025

Congress returns from the Memorial Day recess with a full agenda

Just before the recess, the House passed H.R. 1, its version of the reconciliation bill that will harm students and working families with deep cuts in Medicaid, food aid, and diminishing access to higher education.

The Senate process for action on H.R. 1 begins this week. Changes in the House bill are expected, but their nature and scope is not yet clear. What is clear: the administration is pushing for fast action—before the July 4 recess, if possible.

On the House side, the focus is shifting to the FY2026 budget process. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has proposed cutting K-12 funding by 15% and replacing 25 existing programs with no-strings-attached block grants. Further details have not yet been revealed.

Urge the Senate to Reject the House-Passed Budget Bill that Will Harm Students and Working Families

Don’t Slash Medicaid and Children’s Health Care

Fair Pay and Benefits for Education Support Professionals

May 30, 2025

Democrats lash out as Legislature bans school clubs that support gay teens

Democrats took to the floor of the Texas House on Saturday to label a ban on clubs that support gay teens the work of “monsters” and to say the ban endangers children and strips them of their dignity.

The Democratic representatives grew emotional in opposition to a bill that would ban K-12 student clubs focused on sexuality and gender identity.

Senate Bill 12, authored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, won final legislative passage Saturday after lawmakers in both chambers adopted the conference committee reports that specifically clarified that schools will be banned from authorizing or sponsoring student clubs based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Backers proclaimed that the bill enshrines a parent’s rights and puts the parent not just at the table, but at the head of the table where the child’s best interests are decided. They also targeted diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, claiming that they project ideologies on students and put too much focus on race, sexuality and gender identity instead of the quality of education. Read more

May 29, 2025

Texas poised to add $100 million to child care scholarship program

Texas lawmakers are providing an extra $100 million in child care scholarships and giving regional workforce development boards more freedom to allocate money to key providers.

Nearly 95,000 Texas children are on a waitlist for child care scholarships. Meanwhile, brick and mortar facilities are closing and the cost of child care in Texas is making it difficult for working parents to make ends meet.

“Because of this funding, thousands more parents will be able to go to work while their children thrive in high-quality child care,” said David Feigen, the director of early learning policy for the child care advocacy group Texans Care for Children. ”This is a huge step, and we are grateful and energized to help get these funds to the families who are counting on them.”

Feigen’s group is one of several that have put pressure on Texas lawmakers this session to address critical issues affecting child care centers. Read more

May 28, 2025

Texas to expand how schools discipline students

Texas schools will be able to use harsher punishments to discipline students after the Texas Legislature passed a sweeping package on Wednesday — part of their efforts to stem student violence after the pandemic.

“Disruptions are impeding both the ability of teachers to teach and the ability of students to learn,” said state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock.

House Bill 6 would extend how long schools can place students in in-school suspensions from three days to as long as they see appropriate. Principals would need to review the placement every 10 days. Students facing in-school suspension still complete schoolwork in a different classroom on school grounds.

Because the bill would allow schools to use out-of-school suspensions to discipline all students when they engage in “repeated and significant” classroom disruption or threaten the health and safety of other children, it would make it easier for schools to discipline students experiencing homelessness and the state’s youngest students. That’s because the bill would reverse state laws from 2017 and 2019 that put limitations on when and how those students could be disciplined. When schools do out an out-of-school suspension to students in kindergarten through third grade, they’ll need to provide documentation of the students’ disruptive behavior. Read more

May 27, 2025

TSTA urges House to reject Senate version of HB 4 because it would create a worse testing and accountability system than we have now

The Texas State Teachers Association urges the House to reject the Senate’s substitute for House Bill 4 and ask for a conference committee. The House version of HB 4 was a significant improvement over the current STAAR test and state accountability system. The Senate’s rewrite of the House bill, if enacted, would make the current system worse. If HB 4 were to die in conference, schools, educators and students would be better off with the current flawed accountability system than with what the Senate would create. Read our full release

May 26, 2025

An East Texas community grapples with school closures as education options shift

Schools are more than brick and mortar in Deep East Texas. They are the places where students experienced historic events with their peers. They are a common ground for generations of families who walked their halls. They are evenings spent performing plays and days spent taking tests and playing tag at recess.

That made the decision to close the decade-old schools that much harder, school leaders said. Read more

May 24, 2025

Texas will require public school classrooms to display Ten Commandments under bill nearing passage

Come September, every public school classroom in Texas could be required to display the Ten Commandments under a requirement that passed a key vote in the Texas legislature Sunday — part of a larger push in Texas and beyond to increase the role of religion in schools.

Senate Bill 10 moved forward despite a federal court ruling that a similar Louisiana law violated a constitutionally required separation of church and state.

The bill preliminarily passed the House 88-49 on Saturday — the Jewish Sabbath day, which the Ten Commandments forbids, as Rep. James Talarico said in an effort to highlight legislative hypocrisy. The lower chamber’s initial approval came after more than two hours of debate and despite last-ditch Democratic efforts to water down the law, including giving school districts the opportunity to vote on the policy, and adding codes of ethics from different faiths into the bill.

May 23, 2025

Deadlocked Supreme Court Rejects Bid for Religious Charter School in Oklahoma

An evenly divided Supreme Court rejected a plan on Thursday to allow Oklahoma to use government money to run the nation’s first religious charter school, which would teach a curriculum infused by Catholic doctrine.

In a tie, the court split 4 to 4 over the Oklahoma plan, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recusing herself from the case, and the decision provided no reasoning.

That deadlock means that an earlier ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court will be allowed to stand. The state court blocked a proposal for the Oklahoma school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which was to be operated by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, and aimed to incorporate Catholic teachings into every aspect of its activities.

Because there was no majority in the case, the court’s decision sets no nationwide precedent on the larger question of whether the First Amendment permits states to sponsor and finance religious charter schools.

The decision did not include a tally of how each justice voted, stating only that the lower court ruling was “affirmed by an equally divided court.” Justice Barrett did not explain her recusal, though she is close friends with an adviser to the school.

Across the country, charter schools are public schools that are run independently, sometimes by nonprofits. St. Isidore had sought to challenge their status as public schools, arguing that it would instead be a private school, in contract with the government.

May 22, 2025

Fort Worth ISD board approves plan to close 18 schools over four years

The Fort Worth Independent School District’s board voted Tuesday to approve a plan to close 16 more schools over the next four years. The closures the board approved Tuesday are in addition to two others the board had already approved. District officials say the cuts will allow them to redirect millions of dollars toward academic priorities.

The board approved the plan by an 8-0 vote, with board member Wallace Bridges absent. The closures are a part of Fort Worth ISD’s facilities master plan, which has been months in the making. The plan is intended to help the district manage revenue losses from declining enrollment. Fort Worth ISD has seen its enrollment drop by 15% since the 2019-20 school year, and officials project the district will lose another 6% of its enrollment by 2029-30. Read more

May 21, 2025

Northwest ISD joins multi-district lawsuit aimed at social media companies

The Northwest ISD board voted unanimously May 19 to join several school districts across the state in litigation efforts to recover expenses sustained by the district related to youth social media usage and addiction.

According to district documents, on Oct. 11, 2022, the Federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation created MDL No. 3047 involving defendants Meta Platforms, Inc., Instagram LLC, Snap, Inc., TikTok, Inc., ByteDance, Inc., YouTube LLC, Google LLC, and Alphabet Inc. The plaintiffs allege:
The defendants’ social media platforms are defective products that, in turn, cause various damages
The tech firms knew their product was having a negative effect on the mental health of the nation’s youth
The firms proceeded to reap large profits in conscious disregard for the harms occurring
School districts are suing to recoup expenses for implementing student technology separation measures, increased mental health counseling and educating students with limitations resulting from social media use, according to district documents. Read more

May 20, 2025

Texas Students Use Their Voice to Combat Student Paper Censorship

High school student journalists from North Texas and across the state have joined forces to advocate for legislation that would mitigate the impact of a 1988 Supreme Court case on student expression. The coalition, named New Voices Texas, is a student-led group advocating for the passage of a state law that will protect student journalists from censorship and clarify the role of school administrators in the school newspaper publication process.

Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D-Austin) introduced House Bill 4821 this session with the goal of amending the Texas Education Code to more clearly define the authority given to high school administrators over student newspapers while limiting the impact of the 1988 Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier ruling. The ruling declared that high schools did not have to affirmatively promote specific types of speech, such as school newspapers, and that educators did not infringe on a student’s free speech by exercising editorial control for “legitimate pedagogical concerns.” Read more

May 19, 2025

Huge funding cuts are coming to our communities — unless we stop them

Last week, House GOP leadership and committees finally put pen to paper and spelled out key elements of their budget bill. The winners: billionaires and corporations. The losers: students and families.

As a whole, the bill represents a historic transfer of wealth from working families to the ultra-rich. To “pay for” tax cuts for billionaires, GOP-led committees repeatedly voted to slash education, health, and nutrition programs for ordinary people: students, seniors, individuals with disabilities, veterans, and more.

The next step is combining the provisions approved last week—and more—in a single bill that the entire House will vote on. GOP leadership acknowledges it will continue to make changes until the bill actually hits the floor, but is adamant—for now—that the vote will be held later this week. Problematic provisions include:

A $20 billion tax-credit voucher scheme to weaken public education which hits rural areas especially hard
$715 billion in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act cuts that cause 7 million people to lose health care coverage
$290 billion in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cuts and eligibility restrictions that also put access to school meals at risk
Slashing and restructuring student aid programs to make higher education less affordable and accessible
Steep increases in work and sponsorship fees that turn legal immigration into a luxury only the wealthy can afford

Now, more than ever, it is important to tell Congress what you think! PLEASE email your representative and urge them to vote against the GOP budget bill.

May 16, 2025

Texas lawmakers push to enforce election transparency law after newsrooms found school districts failed to comply

Texas lawmakers are pushing to impose steep penalties on local governments that don’t post campaign finance reports online, after an investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found some school districts weren’t doing so.

The initial posting requirements, designed to make election spending more transparent, went into effect nearly two years ago. Most of the school district leaders said they had no idea they were out of compliance until the newsrooms contacted them. Even after many districts uploaded whatever documentation they had on file for their trustee elections, reports were still missing because candidates hadn’t turned them in or the schools lost them.

“I was surprised and disappointed,” said Republican state Rep. Carl Tepper, who authored the online posting requirement. “I did realize that we didn’t really put any teeth into the bill.”

Tepper is aiming to correct that with a new bill this legislative session. He cited the newsrooms’ findings in a written explanation of why the state needs to implement greater enforcement. Read more

May 15, 2025

It is time to increase funding for public schools

With time running out on the legislative session, Texas public schools are still waiting for a vital increase in funding from lawmakers. As of this morning, the Senate version of HB 2, a funding bill that includes a nominal, but insufficient, increase to the basic allotment, is 225 pages long. TSTA’s policy experts are unpacking the language of this substitution.

The Texas Senate Committee on Education K-16 will reconvene upon adjournment of the full Senate session. Watch the hearing later today: https://senate.texas.gov/av-live.php

Contact your Texas Senator today and urge them to invest in Texas public education! Click the “Call Me” button on this action to be connected to your Senator’s office.

May 14, 2025

Texas bill to overhaul STAAR test clears the House but faces a skeptical Senate

The Texas House gave preliminary approval Monday to a bill that would eliminate STAAR, the high-stakes standardized test that the state and school districts use to monitor student learning and teacher performance.

The STAAR test “leads to anxiety in our classroom with our teachers, and it leads to absolutely no information that a parent can understand,” Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, said on the House floor Monday. “Assessment should be instructionally relevant and actionable.”

House Bill 4 got a near unanimous vote in the House on Monday, but faces a tough road in the Senate. The upper chamber has its own idea for what an overhaul of the state standardized test, and the school rating system largely based on that test’s outcomes, should look like. The gulf between the proposals is wide — one lawmakers will need to close in the final weeks of this year’s legislative session.

Both the House and Senate versions of the legislation would swap the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, with a shorter test to free up time for more instruction. Students would be tested at the beginning, middle and end of the school year so teachers could use test results to identify areas for improvement and shape their lesson plans. The proposals also weigh in on how the state should calculate its school and district ratings.

Read TSTA’s analysis

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May 13, 2025

It’s not just about vouchers and school funding: here are other Texas public education bills you should track

Private school vouchers, public school finance and teacher pay have been the focus of heated debates during this year’s legislative session over how to direct taxpayer dollars to support Texas children’s education. But those haven’t been the only education-related issues up for discussion.

Many other bills aim to reshape public education in Texas. Some offer additional resources, while others introduce new restrictions. Proposed legislation would boost funding for campus safety, support students who are falling behind in math and reading, and prohibit the use of cellphones during school hours.

Other measures have drawn more controversy. These include bills that would extend the state’s higher ed ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs to K-12 schools, require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms, and expand teachers’ authority to discipline students. Supporters say these changes will improve classroom environments, while critics warn they could harm the state’s most vulnerable children.

Here’s a look at some of the most significant education bills under consideration and where they stand in the legislative process.

See our Bills on the Move

May 12, 2025

How Money Matters: Education Funding and Student Outcomes

A large and growing body of evidence shows that money, when spent equitably and effectively on key school resources, improves student outcomes and closes achievement and opportunity gaps. Research consistently shows that when more money is spent on education, especially for students from low-income families, achievement and graduation rates improve, along with life outcomes such as employment and wages. Read the study

May 11, 2025

‘This law does not make any sense’: What you had to say about school vouchers | Q&A with Lisa Gray

Last week, I asked your thoughts on Texas’ new $1 billion school-voucher program. More than 90% of your responses were opposed to the program — many vehemently so. Here (lightly edited) is some of what you had to say. — Lisa Gray

May 10, 2025

As Texas targets DEI and curriculum, even women’s universities like TWU feel the pressure

Texas Woman’s University, founded in 1901 by the state to advance women’s education, is now feeling pressured to downplay its women and gender studies program.

The push from Texas lawmakers and the threats of federal funding cuts over special programs aimed at women, Black history, Hispanic heritage and gay studies have caused fear and anxiety for those in higher education, educators said.

TWU hasn’t been immune to the effects as a public university but has stayed under the radar as new laws against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have been enacted since 2023. Although it was opened to advance women’s education and is the largest women-focused university system in the U.S., TWU has been open to men since 1972. The campus in Denton has a total enrollment of over 12,000 students. TWU also has campuses in Dallas and Houston.

Numerous professors in North Texas who head gender, multicultural and LGBT+ programs declined to be interviewed for this story, citing fear of calling attention to their studies. Read more

May 9, 2025

Brownsville ISD looks to bring back students amid declining enrollment

Faced with declining enrollments and schools needing renovation, the Brownsville Independent School District Budget Committee considered strategies Thursday to stop losing students and start bringing them back.

BISD has been losing students to the charter schools since 2013, mainly because district boundaries haven’t changed since 1915 while the city has grown, but also due to declining birth rates, and recently, the pandemic, information presented the meeting confirmed.

With the exception of adding the El Jardin school district in 1953, BISD’s boundaries haven’t changed in more than 100 years, district demographer Lee Garcia said.

While Brownsville can move the city limits outward on its own, BISD cannot do the same except by legislative action, Garcia and Finance Director Mary Garza explained.

As a result, parts of Brownsville are not part of BISD, notably, The Woods, Westlake and other subdivisions on the city’s northern edge. Brownsville is growing, but outside of BISD boundaries, Garcia said. Read more

May 8, 2025

After immigration crackdown, international students in Texas self-censor to protect their education

The fear on Texas college campuses spread fast after the Trump administration abruptly revoked the legal status and visas of more than 250 international students.

Even foreign-born students who weren’t identified for removal began worrying about getting on the radar of a White House that has fervently sought to supercharge the nation’s deportation apparatus.

They canceled summer trips home. They stopped venturing out of their homes alone. They deleted social media accounts.

The Trump administration originally said its nationwide reclassification of international students was aimed at those who led pro-Palestinian demonstrations last year or had committed serious crimes while in the U.S. But in legal challenges filed across the country, lawyers for affected students argued their clients had not protested and that some had only been previously charged with minor offenses, like traffic infractions. Federal authorities restored many students’ legal status late last month — but also said they would develop a new policy to pursue future revocations. Read more

May 7, 2025

Texas’ youngest learners are behind in math and reading. A pair of bills aims to get them back on track.

Texas lawmakers want to help young learners who are lagging behind in math and reading, an early setback that threatens to derail their path to high school graduation.

More than half of third graders in the state are not at grade level in reading or math, meaning they lack the key foundational skills they need to thrive as learners.

Students who are behind in third grade rarely catch up, which can lead to serious consequences later in life. Research shows students who struggle to read by third grade are more likely to drop out of high school. Math proficiency is tied to economic mobility as an adult.

The Texas House gave final approval Wednesday to House Bill 123, which aims to provide struggling students extra learning support as early as kindergarten, before learning gaps compound. Read more

May 6, 2025

Texas Senate panel advances bill that would no longer allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition

A bill that would make college less affordable for undocumented students, including those who have called the state their home for most of their lives, is advancing in the Texas Senate.

The Senate’s K-16 committee voted 9-2 on Tuesday to bring Senate Bill 1798 to the chamber’s floor for a full vote. It would eliminate undocumented students’ eligibility for in-state tuition and require those previously deemed eligible to pay the difference between in- and out-of-state tuition.

State Sen. Mayes Middleton, who authored the bill, said taxpayers are subsidizing higher education for people in the country illegally, which he estimated cost $150 million in the 2024-2025 academic year.

“These are funds that could have been used for lawful residents, perhaps even to lower tuition and fees,” Middleton said during an April 22 Senate education hearing when the bill was discussed. Read more

May 5, 2025

Texas House Republicans poised to scale back legislation that targets state’s universities

The Texas House on Tuesday proposed changes to dramatically limit the scope of a wide-ranging Senate bill that could transform how the state’s universities function and teach students.

As written, Senate Bill 37 would prohibit professors from teaching students to adopt the idea that any race, sex, ethnicity, or social, political or religious belief is superior to another. It would also set up a system by which degree programs could be eliminated if the state determines they do not provide a return on investment for students. The bill would give the governor-appointed regents who oversee each university system in the state the authority to approve every job posting for tenured faculty in liberal arts, communications, education and social work. Finally, it would allow anyone to report schools for violation of the law. The bill already cleared the state Senate.

In the House, state Rep. Matt Shaheen, a Plano Republican, proposed removing references to social and political beliefs and the rating system. His version also only allows regents to overturn the hirings of provosts, vice presidents and deans, and limits who can report violations of the law to students and those involved with the university.

The bill is part of an effort by Republicans to address what they see as a liberal bias in higher education. They are pushing back on professors who, in recent years, not only asserted their authority to teach topics like critical race theory, but also criticized their universities for sending police to arrest pro-Palestinian protesters on campus. It follows a 2023 ban on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Read more

May 1, 2025

A 20-hour wait to speak: A pre-dawn House panel takes up Ten Commandments bill

At 2 am, they napped on benches in the Capitol corridors, blankets in tow and armed with snacks in anticipation of the long wait. At 5 am they ordered coffee and hot chocolate — to stay awake, and to stay warm in the frigid hearing room.

Early Wednesday, a couple of dozen Texans who had waited nearly 20 hours to testify on a bill to require classrooms to post the Ten Commandments gathered in the hearing room to share their views. Most were there in opposition to the bill, Senate Bill 10, which requires every public K-12 classroom to display a poster or framed copy of the Biblical code of ethics that’s at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall.

As dawn broke, Alexander Shawver — one of the last people to testify — implored committee members to vote against the bill.

“I have to question the faith and motivation of anyone who wants to use the full power of the state to force a chunk of King James’ text to hang over every public school student’s head in every classroom across the state,” he said. “And when our last opportunity to testify against it is at 6 a.m., it doesn’t feel like democracy is out in the open, as it should be.” Read more

April 30, 2025

Lawmakers want clear rules on how to divide districts

Lawmakers discussed a bill Tuesday that would create new rules for school districts that want to split into smaller entities, months after a controversial, now-abandoned plan to break up Keller ISD raised questions about whether the district could do so without voters’ input.

House Bill 5089, authored by Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, would set rules for how a school district could split off from an existing one. Under the bill, 20% of registered voters in each of the proposed new districts would have to sign a petition. If that threshold is met, an election would be held, and voters would decide whether to approve the split. The State Board of Education would oversee the election.

The Texas House’s public education committee held a hearing Tuesday to gather public testimony but didn’t decide whether to advance the bill for a full vote on the House floor.

Much of Tuesday’s discussion focused on Keller ISD, which sparked a controversy when news broke earlier this year that some board trustees were considering splitting up the district as a way to respond to their financial challenges. An initial proposal was drafted without any public input, sparking concerns that the split would unfairly favor one of the new districts. In March, Keller ISD leaders ultimately dropped the plans. Read more

April 29, 2025

Average teacher pay in Texas falls more than $10,000 below national average, Texas scraping the bottom in per-student funding

The average teacher salary in Texas is now more than $10,000 less than the national average, while per-pupil funding in the state’s public schools has slipped so far behind the national effort that only three other states now spend less than Texas to educate a child. These findings are from the National Education Association’s latest annual survey of state financial commitments to public education.

Using data from the Texas Education Agency, NEA estimated that during the current 2024-25 school year, the average teacher in Texas is earning $63,749, compared to a national average of $74,177. That’s a gap of $10,428, as Texas teachers continue to lose ground. Last year, their average pay was $9,567 less, on average, than their peers across the country. Adjusted for inflation, Texas teacher salaries are worth 8.12 percent less than they were in 2016.

Also using state financial data, NEA estimated that Texas’ per-pupil spending based on average daily attendance (ADA) for the current school year is $13,189, which is $5,664 less than the national average of $18,853, ranking Texas 47th among the states. Only Utah, Oklahoma and Idaho spend less per student. Read the full release

Texas students say K-12 DEI ban and other anti-LGBTQ+ bills threaten their safety, voice and mental health

When Marshall Romero came out as a trans male in 2021, he didn’t think his identity would become a political issue.

But in the years since, the 16-year-old sophomore at Alief Early College High School in Houston said he has watched the Republican Party increasingly target LGBTQ+ people, and he became more politically active in response.

“In today’s world, simply existing as a trans person has become an act of resistance,” Romero said while speaking about LGBTQ+ rights during a rally at the Texas Capitol earlier this month. “And in a society that politicizes my existence, just living authentically becomes an act of defiance.” Read more

April 25, 2025

Texas universities say Trump administration restored immigration status of some international students

The Trump administration announced Friday it will restore the immigration status of thousands of international students for now — including more than 250 in Texas — weeks after many found out the federal government had revoked their ability to stay legally in the country.

It is unclear how many of the affected international students in Texas will have their status restored. In the days since the Trump administration’s announcement, Texas A&M University, Texas Woman’s University, the University of Texas at El Paso, Texas Tech University, Texas State University, the University of Houston and the University of North Texas — the latter of which enrolls the most international students in the state — have reported that some of their students’ legal statuses had changed back to active.

Students at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley also had their status restored Friday, the students’ attorney said.

The Texas Tribune first learned that international students at Texas A&M were finding out, often without notification from the federal government, that their status had been marked as terminated in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, a federal immigration database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. University officials said they had to refresh the database regularly to find out which students may be at risk for deportation. Read more

April 23, 2025

Dallas school board to consider “due process” rights for district support staff

The Dallas ISD school board on Thursday is expected to add a “due process” clause to its employment policy for at-will employees, including thousands of teacher aides, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, custodians and other support staffers essential to the school district’s operations.

Members of NEA-Dallas, the local affiliate of the Texas State Teachers Association, worked with district administrators on the new language for presentation to the board. Read the full press release

April 21, 2025

“It’s what’s best for a very select few”: Some Texans are skeptical about vouchers as they near the finish line

During last Thursday’s earliest hours, and under intense political pressure from Gov. Greg Abbott, the Texas House voted 86-61 to approve a bill that will spend $1 billion to create education savings accounts — a type of voucher that families can use to pay for their children’s private schooling.

The House’s longstanding push against vouchers, led for years by a coalition of Republicans from rural and industrial communities and Texas Democrats, finally cracked on Thursday — partly because many opponents were booted from office last year as part of a multimillion–dollar campaign championed by Abbott and largely funded by wealthy donors.

The Texas Senate’s leader, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, proposed adopting the House bill to eliminate the need to reconcile the difference between each chamber’s voucher proposals to speed things along and bring the program closer to becoming law.

Residents across Texas are worried the proposal will take away money that could have gone to deficit-plagued public school districts needing help with rising operational expenses. Read more

April 18, 2025

Texas measles cases rise to 597. Here is what you need to know.

The number of cases reported in Texas’ historic measles outbreak has risen to 597, an increase of 36 cases since Friday, according to state officials on Friday. Of those, 62 patients have been hospitalized since the outbreak began in January.

There are now 25 counties with at least one measles case, with Parmer and Potter counties reporting their first cases Friday. They each had one case.

There have been two deaths involving school-aged children who lived in the outbreak area. Neither child was vaccinated, nor did they have any underlying conditions, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. So far, the outbreak has cost taxpayers $4.5 million, which have gone toward immunization and testing efforts, the agency said.

As of Friday, most measles cases reported since January — 371 — were centered in Gaines County, about 90 minutes southwest of Lubbock on the New Mexico border. Read more

April 17, 2025

Voucher bill a slap in the face for millions of Texas children

Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina released the following statement:

We are deeply disappointed that the House majority voted for a voucher bill that is an attack on public schools and a slap in the face for millions of Texas students. This bill will make it more difficult for these children and their educators to get the resources they need for classroom success and do real damage to the public education system that is the backbone of our state’s future.

It is absurd for Gov. Abbott and his pro-voucher allies to claim that a diversion of $1 billion in tax funds to private schools over the next budget cycle will not hurt our underfunded public schools, where the vast majority of our students will remain. That voucher drain will increase to $3 billion by 2028 and more than $4 billion by 2030 if this voucher bill becomes law, the Legislative Budget Board projects.

Texas already spends more than $5,000 less per student than the national average, ranking Texas 46th among the states and the District of Columbia. Many public schools already are cutting programs and increasing class sizes, and the school finance bill also approved by the House will not come close to ending the state’s financial neglect of public education. The House’s $395 increase in the basic allotment, which hasn’t been increased in six years, will provide only a third of what is needed to cover districts’ losses from inflation alone.

Meanwhile, most of Texas’ poorest families, even with vouchers, will not be able to afford the tuition and fees of Texas’ most popular private schools or the related transportation costs for their children. Many vouchers instead will become tax subsidies for upper income parents whose children already attend private school.

For many years, the Texas House stood as a strong defender of public education against the threat of private school vouchers, but it finally was overcome by lies and threats from Gov. Abbott and his billionaire school privatization supporters. For Abbott and his allies, our public schools — and the children who depend upon them — are, at best, an afterthought.

April 16, 2025

The Mounting Trouble with Education Savings Accounts

Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), launched in Arizona in 2011, allow public funds to cover a wide range of educational expenses beyond private school tuition. Originally for students with disabilities, ESAs have expanded—most notably in Arizona and West Virginia in 2022—to become universal vouchers. Now adopted by several states, ESAs promote educational outsourcing and align with libertarian, market-driven ideals. However, they raise accountability concerns, create new taxpayer burdens, and may inflate private school tuition. Public schools, especially in rural areas, suffer funding losses, leading to staff cuts and school closures. ESAs can also worsen inequities and allow discrimination in private and religious schools. This policy brief provides recommendations for mitigating damage from ESAs, including implementing stronger oversight, limiting expansion, enforcing equity protections, documenting local impacts, and pursuing repeal where possible. Read the publication here

April 15, 2025

House Ed Chair Won’t Post Runs for School Finance Bill Online

The chair of the House Public Education Committee won’t publicly release online copies of financial impact summaries for the House’s flagship school finance bill, according to the Quorum Report.

House Bill 2 would increase funding for Texas’s public schools and expand the state’s teacher performance bonus program, among other changes.

Though Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has hailed the bill as the largest school funding bill in the state’s history, the bill would not restore school funding to prepandemic levels when controlling for inflation. Doing so would require about $21 billion in investment, compared to the $7.7 billion included in the bill.

In past sessions, those analyses — or “runs,” in the legislative parlance — would have been available online for superintendents, who would be able to see how much funding their districts would receive under the new plan, according to the Quorum Report.

Instead, the chair of the public education committee, Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, “invites members to pick up copies in person tonight at the Capitol,” per QR.

A staffer from Buckley’s office said that copies of the runs will be available at about 7 p.m.

Monday’s announcement is the second time this session that Buckley has made the legislative process for the school funding bill more opaque. Read more

Texas lawmakers consider a variety of bills to loosen restrictions around firearms

State lawmakers in both the Texas House and Senate considered several bills Monday that would loosen regulations around firearms in Texas.

A panel of House lawmakers heard testimony on more than a dozen proposals addressing everything from expanding where Texans could lawfully carry handguns to returning the right of gun ownership to individuals convicted of serious felonies.

Survivors of gun violence, including the 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School, testified during the hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety & Veterans’ Affairs. Read more

April 14, 2025

The Texas Legislature is having big battles over gender and sexuality; Track them here

Fundamental questions about gender and sexuality are dominating Republican priorities throughout all levels of government. In Texas, the Legislature is considering a record number of anti-trans bills this session.

Lawmakers in the Capitol have quietly pushed proposals to continue restricting the lives of trans people, including what bathrooms they can use, what government documents they can get and what services public schools and mental health providers can give to young people.

It is not clear if the proposals will survive the legislative process. This year’s session is focusing on school vouchers, property tax cuts, immigration enforcement and a THC ban, relegating those proposals to the back burner. But with executive actions, lawsuits and opinions from anti-trans politicians, many of their measures already are impacting trans Texans’ lives, whether the Legislature takes a vote on them or not. Read more

April 13, 2025

‘What did I say in class today?’: Teachers feel watched under Trump’s anti-DEI push

Soon after President Trump returned to office, he signed an executive order titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” which seeks to restrict how schools discuss race, gender and “equity ideology” in the classroom. The order grants the Education Department the power to rescind federal funds from schools that violate the directive. To help enforce the new rules, the Education Department also launched an End DEI portal, where students or parents can report on teachers for diversity, equity and inclusivity lessons taught in class. All of it is raising questions about who has the right to exercise free speech in public education—

The effort to root out DEI lessons is a victory for groups like Moms for Liberty, which is described by supporters as a parental rights organization. It endorsed the creation of the portal as many public school teachers say they’re being closely watched and ultimately silenced. Read more

April 12, 2025

Protect Federal Funding for Public Schools

Most Americans believe every student deserves opportunity, resources, and support to reach their full potential no matter where they live, the color of their skin, or how much their family earns.

Federal funding for our public schools helps fill in the gap where state and local funding sometimes falls short. It helps:

Hire more educators to lower class sizes
Give extra support for students with ADHD, dyslexia, and other disabilities
Feed hungry students so they can learn
Lower the out-of-pocket cost for career technical programs and 2- and 4-year colleges.

Medicaid not only helps 38 million children access health care, it also helps pay for school-based services that benefit the entire student population—including nurses, psychologists, and audiologists.

But some politicians in Congress, led by Elon Musk and his billionaire friends, want to raid the U.S. Department of Education and Medicaid to fund their tax cuts.

They also want to allow states to turn federal support into private school vouchers, without any strings attached.

Tell your representatives in Congress to oppose the Republican budget resolution that would take federal funding away from our public schools and Medicaid. Take action

April 11, 2025

More than 100 international students’ immigration statuses revoked across Texas universities

At least 122 international students at Texas universities have had their legal status changed in a wave of removals from a federal database that have swept across the state and the nation, according to university officials and media reports.

The students learned in recent days their visas were revoked or their immigration status was marked as terminated in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS database.

Visa revocations prevent re-entering the U.S. but do not immediately end an individual’s status. SEVIS removals do, limiting students’ options and causing a much more immediate effect.

As of Thursday, the following universities have confirmed the number of international students who have been affected:

University of North Texas: 27
University of Texas at Arlington: 27
Texas A&M University: 23
University of Texas at Dallas: 19
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley: 9
Texas Woman’s University: 4
Texas Tech University: 3
The University of Texas at Austin, where police arrested dozens for protesting the Israel-Hamas war, and the University of Houston told the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday that some of their international students had a change in their immigration status. Both declined to say how many.

KFOX14 also reported on Wednesday that 10 University of Texas at El Paso students had their visas revoked.

Robert Hoffman, an immigration lawyer with offices in Houston and Bryan, said SEVIS removal also can affect employment eligibility and the status of dependents like spouses and children, whose ability to stay in the U.S. depends on the primary status holder.

“Unfortunately, these kinds of terminations kind of short-circuit due process by not allowing the student the opportunity to hear the specifics of their charges or defend themselves,” Hoffman said. Read more

April 10, 2025

Voucher debate heats up in Texas

Texas lawmakers are preparing to debate Senate Bill 2 (SB 2) which passed out of the House Public Education Committee on party lines. This sets aside $1 billion for the first two years and could grow to $4.4 billion annually by 2030. Meanwhile, a separate bill, HB 2, increases the basic per-student funding for public schools and ties future increases to property value growth. Opponents of SB 2, including teachers, parents, and lawmakers, rallied at the Capitol, urging lawmakers to boost public education funding and reject vouchers. Read more

April 3, 2025

A Texas school leader says material about diversity in state-approved textbooks violated the law

In 2022, conservative groups celebrated a “great victory” over “wokeified” curriculum when the Texas State Board of Education squashed proposed social studies requirements for schools that included teaching kindergartners how Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez “advocated for positive change.”

Another win came a year later as the state board rejected several textbooks that some Republicans argued could promote a “radical environmental agenda” because they linked climate change to human behavior or presented what conservatives perceived to be a negative portrayal of fossil fuels.

By the time the state board approved science and career-focused textbooks for use in Texas classrooms at the end of 2023, it appeared to be comfortably in sync with conservatives who had won control of local school boards across the state in recent years.

But the Republican-led state education board had not gone far enough for the conservative majority on the school board for Texas’ third-largest school district. Read more

April 2, 2025

Private school voucher bill clears first test in Texas House

The Texas House Public Education Committee on Thursday voted in favor of a $1 billion spending cap for the first two years of a potential school voucher program and increasing by $395 the base amount of money public school districts receive for each student.

The changes to House Bill 2, the public school funding bill, and Senate Bill 2, the voucher proposal, will now go to the full House for further consideration. All Democrats on the committee voted against the voucher legislation.

Lawmakers revealed updated versions of both bills Monday, after days of public testimony last month. The committee was slated to discuss them Tuesday, but the panel rescheduled the meeting to Thursday, hours after the release of the new versions. Rep. Brad Buckley, the Republican chair of the committee, said he postponed it to give members additional time to review how the proposed school funding changes would affect their local districts.

While several TV stations broadcast the meeting, the committee did not stream it, drawing criticism from House Democrats. House rules this session require the streaming of public hearings but not formal meetings, which generally do not include public testimony. Read more

April 1, 2025

Ken Paxton wants Dallas school officials under oath on transgender athlete policy

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wants to question Dallas Independent School District officials under oath as part of his investigation into the district’s policy on transgender athletes.

Paxton on Monday announced his office has filed a legal petition to do so. Earlier this year, Paxton’s office launched an investigation of the district’s “unwritten policy” that allegedly encouraged parents of transgender students to alter their childs’ birth certificates in other states.

Paxton initially requested several records regarding the district’s compliance with a 2021 state law that bans transgender students from competing in sports matching their identifying gender. The request came after the district’s LGBT Youth Program Coordinator, Mahoganie Gaston, suggested in a video published by Accuracy in Media, a Washington-based nonprofit that students could play in sports matching updated birth certificates.

In a statement, Dallas ISD said it was following state law and is cooperating with Paxton’s information requests. Read more

March 31, 2025

House Public Education Committee expected to act on voucher bill this week. Tell members to say NO!

Taxpayer-funded vouchers for private schools, which flew through the Senate, have been slowed down in the House, but they are still very much alive. The House Public Education Committee is expected to vote on its version of the voucher bill, HB 3, Tuesday, April 1, after hearing a long list of witnesses testify against it two weeks ago. There were many more witnesses against it than for it because most Texans oppose vouchers.

The committee is expected to amend the bill, but whatever it comes up with will still cost taxpayers and public schools $1 billion in the next state budget and billions more within a few years for a huge tax giveaway for private schools. Many of the vouchers will go to upper-income families already paying tuition for private education for their children.

Repeating what we reported last week, a new poll released by Unified for Texas Workers, a group to which TSTA belongs, and Z to A Research shows that 65 percent of likely Texas voters oppose a taxpayer-funded voucher program to pay for private and religious schools. This was based on a recent survey of 1,275 Texas voters.

So, keep contacting members of the Public Education Committee and urging them to vote against vouchers!

March 30, 2025

Don’t slash Medicaid and children’s health care

Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provide health care coverage for nearly 80 million Americans, including 38 million children and 1 in 10 education support professionals. Slashing support by as much as $880 billion, as Republican budget numbers demand, would reverberate throughout the economy — especially in rural areas where public schools are economic centers and health care is scarce.

Reducing federal support would not lower costs—it would merely shift them to the states, where programs of all kinds would be under siege. Consequences could include fewer health services for fewer people, hospital closures, higher taxes, larger class sizes, and reduced support for 7.5 million students with disabilities —15% of the student population.

Virtually every student could be affected. That’s because Medicaid reimbursements help pay for school-based services that benefit the entire student population — health care as well as educators’ salaries and the services of health professionals like nurses, psychologists, and audiologists.

Find out more about the impact in your school district, congressional district, or state.

Take action here

March 27, 2025

Attaching a Dollar Amount to the Culture Wars at School

Education-related conflict has a cost. And it’s not just metaphorical.

The Trump administration is currently adding to these conflicts by issuing a stream of federal orders that aim to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and disrupt or end its programs, to prevent teachers from fully and accurately addressing race and gender in the classroom, and to require or facilitate schools’ discrimination against LGBTQ+ students.

A recent report prices out the expenses K-12 school districts have borne as a result of similar efforts at the local level. Entitled The Costs of Conflict: The Fiscal Impact of Culturally Divisive Conflict on Public Schools in the United States, the report was written by NEPC Fellow John Rogers of UCLA, Rachel White of the University of Texas at Austin, NEPC Fellow Robert Shand of American University, and Joseph Kahne of the University of California, Riverside.

Based on a survey of 467 superintendents and interviews with 42, the researchers found that, in 2023-24, nearly every district in the nation experienced culturally divisive conflict related to topics such as gender, race, and book bans. Roughly two out of three were exposed to moderate to high levels of conflict, as defined by tensions that arose and occurred regularly across multiple areas of concern.

Based on these results, Rogers and his colleagues concluded that these conflicts cost American taxpayers more than $3 billion in 2023-24 by increasing and/or introducing new direct and indirect expenses such as security for school board meetings, salaries for staff to combat misinformation and fulfill public records requests, legal fees, and recruitment and retention (due to the need to replace staff who left as a result of the tension).

The costs ranged from $25 per student in low-conflict districts to $80 per student in high-conflict jurisdictions.

Superintendents who participated in the study noted that these conflicts were rooted not so much in the actual practices and day-to-day realities of schools as in broader societal dynamics. Most were driven by small groups of individuals who used threats and misinformation for political advantages. Read more

March 26, 2025

Five ways a funding overhaul has transformed Texas community colleges

Community colleges in 2023 celebrated a long-awaited investment from the Texas Legislature, positioning Texas to lead the country in connecting young people to the workforce.

That year, state legislators reimagined how community colleges are financed with House Bill 8. The old funding formula awarded schools based on enrollment. Schools now have to see their students through to graduation to get money: The new formula ties state dollars to degree and certificate completions, transfers to four-year universities and high schoolers’ participation in dual credit courses.

The effort was born out of state leaders’ desire to better prepare young Texans for the workforce. By 2030, at least 60% of jobs in Texas will require a postsecondary credential, and yet, less than 40% of students earn a degree or certificate within six years of graduating high school. For students, a postsecondary credential often leads to higher wages and increased economic and social mobility.

As part of a near-unanimous vote for HB 8, lawmakers poured a historic $683 million into two-year institutions. When the money trickled down to each college in fiscal year 2024, each college saw an influx of dollars that ranged from $70,000 to $2.9 million. Read more

March 25, 2025

We’re suing Linda McMahon and the USED

We are suing Linda McMahon and the U.S. Department of Education, joining together with parent- and student-rights organizations and the NAACP.

Recent cuts to the department’s workforce and programs are unacceptable and illegal. Our students deserve better.

This lawsuit is just one of the many levers our union is using to protect students from the politicians and billionaires who want to take a wrecking ball to public education.

Congress created the Department of Education “to ensure equal access for all Americans to educational opportunities of a high quality.”

That mission cannot be realized if half of its workforce is unemployed and its programs are frozen.

Our students will lose out most—with larger class sizes, fewer job training programs, higher education that is further out of reach, less support for students with ADHD, dyslexia, and other disabilities, and no enforcement of student civil rights protections.

Let us know how you’d like to get involved so we can stop politicians and billionaires from privatizing our public schools. Read more

March 24, 2025

Texas’ DEI debate centers on a disagreement about whether programs perpetuate or prevent discrimination

The University of Texas at Austin’s multicultural center, which hosted six groups that supported students of color, formally closed in January 2024. After that, university funding evaporated for several student groups the center sponsored, leaving them to scrounge up financial support elsewhere.

For Kam McQueen, a Black and queer student, losing the center was a blow — especially on a campus where only 4.5% of students are Black.

“It’s hard to find spaces where you feel like you belong and there’s people with you,” McQueen said. “Whenever they got rid of the Multicultural Engagement Center at UT, it was detrimental to my well-being, having to fight every single day for your place.”

Many Texans who support DEI programs say spaces like this simply support and connect people from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups. They see the efforts as a natural outgrowth of bedrock American principles and landmark laws — like the constitutional right to equal protection and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — meant to protect people from discrimination.

In 2023, Texas banned DEI offices, programs and training at public colleges and universities. That prompted UT-Austin to pull support for cultural graduation ceremonies for Black, Hispanic and LGBTQ+ students. The flagship university and other schools closed or replaced multicultural and diversity offices, laying off or reassigning employees.

Debates over whether DEI initiatives prevent or lead to discrimination, whether they get in the way of merit-based decisions or level the playing field, and even the term’s meaning and what the initiatives do are at the center of disagreements within the Capitol’s chambers.

This year, lawmakers are considering extending similar prohibitions to K-12 schools and the Texas Senate has already passed such a bill. Gov. Greg Abbott has directed state agencies to end all DEI efforts.

What is DEI? DEI is short for diversity, equity and inclusion, and typically refers to efforts that public and private institutions employ to comply with longstanding laws that prohibit discrimination based on characteristics like race or sex. The term has become highly politicized in recent years. The current division over DEI is partially fueled by the lack of a standard definition for the term.

Why do DEI efforts exist? They’re largely an outgrowth of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, a movement that pushed back against discriminatory laws and practices that persisted since the founding of the United States and after the Civil War.

The anti-DEI push: Some DEI critics say the framework’s intentions are well-meaning. They also say DEI programs disguise discriminatory and divisive policies that single out individuals based on their race, ethnicity or identity. Programs to elevate historically underrepresented groups amount to giving some people preferential treatment over others, they add. Basically, critics say DEI promotes identity over merit.

March 23, 2025

Don’t slash Medicaid/CHIP

Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provide health care coverage for nearly 80 million Americans, including 38 million children and 1 in 10 education support professionals. Slashing support by as much as $880 billion, as Republican budget numbers demand, would reverberate throughout the economy—especially in rural areas where public schools are economic centers and health care is scarce.

March 22, 2025

Oppose the Republican budget resolution

Over the long term, it is counterproductive to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations by slashing investments in our students—America’s future leaders and workforce. Yet that is just what this resolution aims to do.

The consequences would be severe, especially in rural communities where public schools are the economic center.

Support for vulnerable students would wither while a tax credit voucher scheme diverts $100 billion from public to private and religious schools. Higher education would become less affordable and accessible. Millions of students could lose access to school meals, higher education, healthcare, and more.

Tell your senators and representative to oppose the Republican budget resolution. Take action

March 21, 2025

Texas faculty testify against bills to screen universities’ curriculum for “ideological” bias

Dozens of professors testified Thursday against a proposal that would prevent college courses from endorsing “specific public policies, ideologies or legislation,” saying it threatens not only their freedom to teach, but students’ freedom to learn.

The Texas Senate’s K-16 Education Committee heard testimony Thursday on Senate Bill 37, by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, a sweeping piece of legislation that would task universities’ governing boards with screening curricula for ideological bias, among other things.

Seth Chandler, a professor of law at the University of Houston, said the bill could be interpreted as prohibiting a broad range of subjects — from the teaching of free market economics to the original interpretation of the Constitution, or even the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

Others said the legislation would instill fear to introduce and discuss material some might find controversial.

March 20, 2025

Different pace and priorities separate Texas Senate and House on school vouchers

The last time the Texas Legislature tried to pass a school voucher program, things were not aligning. In 2023, the voucher-resistant Texas House acted in defiance of Gov. Greg Abbott and his pro-voucher allies.

Things have changed this legislative session, and the gulf between the chambers is far narrower. The House and Senate will still need to reconcile differences in their respective bills, but they’re nowhere near the discord from 2023, according to voucher reporters and critics.

What are the differences in the two bills? The Senate and House have released the first draft of their voucher plans, Senate Bill 2 and House Bill 3. The main differences between the two bills are how much money students would receive, which applicants would take priority and how the program would accommodate students with disabilities.

Under SB 2, a family of four earning roughly $40,560 per year and a family of four with an income of about $156,000, would be equally prioritized for the program. House Bill 3 proposes a more detailed ranking system.

How has the House changed its tune? This session, a slim majority of the House signed on in support of Rep. Brad Buckley’s HB 3, signaling the bill has enough support to pass. Past voucher proposals have repeatedly died in the House because of opposition from Democrats and rural Republicans.

But many of those Republicans around in 2023 retired or lost their primaries against Abbott-backed candidates.

March 19, 2025

Texas conservatives are using school board elections to exert influence over what students learn

In 2019, the Keller Independent School District in North Texas looked a lot like its counterpart just 30 miles to the east in the Dallas suburb of Richardson. Each served about 35,000 children and had experienced sharp increases in the racial diversity of students in recent decades. Each was run by a school board that was almost entirely white.

In the five years since, the districts have followed strikingly divergent paths as culture war battles over how to teach race and gender exploded across the state.

In Keller, candidates backed by groups seeking to limit the teaching of race and gender took control of the school board and immediately passed sweeping policies that gave outsized power to any individual who wanted to prevent the purchase of books they believed to be unsuitable for children.

Though more than half of Keller’s students are from racially diverse backgrounds, the district in 2023 nixed a plan to buy copies of a biography of Black poet Amanda Gorman after a teacher at a religious private school who had no children in the district complained about this passage: “Amanda realized that all the books she had read before were written by white men. Discovering a book written by people who look like her helped Amanda find her own voice.” The passage, the woman wrote, “makes it sound like it’s okay to judge a book by the authors skin color rather than the content of the book.” Read more

March 17, 2025

Texas schools have leaned on uncertified teachers to fill vacancies; Lawmakers want to put a stop to it

School district leaders across Texas were once reluctant to hire uncertified teachers. Now they rely on them amid a growing teacher shortage. But nested inside the Texas House’s $7.6 billion school finance package is a provision to ban uncertified teachers from instructing core classes in public schools. In House Bill 2, districts have until fall 2026 to certify K-5 math and reading teachers, and until 2027 to certify teachers in other subjects.

Uncertified teachers made up about 38% of newly hired instructors last year, with many of them concentrated in rural school districts.

Under HB 2, the state would help uncertified teachers pay off credential fees, and people who participate in an in-school training and mentoring program would get a one-time $10,000 payment. Teachers who go through a traditional university or alternative certification program would get $3,000. Special education and bilingual teachers would have certification fees waived. Experts say it could be the largest financial investment Texas has ever made in teacher preparation.

While district leaders agree this sounds great in theory, they worry the bill might ask for too much too soon from them, and that it doesn’t propose any meaningful solution to replace uncertified teachers who leave.

There aren’t as many Texans who want to be teachers as there used to be. The average state salary is about $9,000 less than the national average. Teachers say they’re overworked as they navigate unwieldy class sizes and use their weekends to catch up on grading. Many teachers left during the COVID-19 pandemic, which only accelerated the shortage. Read more

March 14, 2025

Texas Senate panel advances bill banning DEI in K-12 public schools

A priority bill filed in the Texas Senate seeks to extend the state’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives to K-12 public schools.

The Texas Senate Education Committee’s Republican majority voted Thursday 8-2 to advance Senate Bill 12, sending it to the full Legislature for further consideration.

Sen. Brandon Creighton, the Conroe Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Education K-16, introduced both SB 12 and Senate Bill 1565 after Gov. Greg Abbott expressed support in his State of the State address earlier this year for Texas banning diversity practices across its more than 1,200 public school districts.

“It’s clear these programs are already in our schools using millions of taxpayer dollars meant for the classroom to fund political activism and political agendas,” Creighton said during a recent public hearing for the measures.

An earlier version of SB 12 suggested that school districts could lose funding if they failed to comply with the proposed ban, but it did not lay out how that would have happened. The new bill voted out of committee Thursday no longer includes that provision.

SB 12 would still make it illegal for Texas school districts to factor in diversity, equity and inclusion in hiring and employment decisions. It would prevent schools from developing policies, programs and training that reference race, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation. It would require districts to create policies for disciplining employees who engage in or assign DEI-related tasks to others. And it would ban classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation.

March 12, 2025

Trump’s Department of Education firings are an attack on millions of school children Texas State Teachers Association

The Trump administration’s firing of more than 1,000 employees at the U.S. Department of Education is not an attack on bureaucracy. It is an attack on millions of low-income school children and millions of students with special needs. It also is an attack on the educators who are dedicated to improving these children’s lives and preparing them for successful futures.

The loss of these experienced employees will make it extremely difficult for the agency to administer federal funding for programs crucial to low-income, Title I students, special education kids and the children who benefit from services provided under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. The Department of Education also has long provided funding for English language learners, grants for academic research and grants and loans allowing millions of young people to get college educations or skilled training in technical schools.

Read our full release

March 11, 2025

How voucher vendors could make millions from ‘school choice’ in Texas

In August 2024, the business magazine Inc released its annual list of the top 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the United States. At 815th, a burgeoning upstart called ClassWallet cracked the list’s top 20 percent for the third straight year. By expanding its operations managing school voucher programs for states across the country, earnings for the Florida company grew by 610 percent over the previous three years.

Founded in 2014, ClassWallet now has more than 200 employees and has contracts to administer school vouchers and other educational programs in 18 states through its “digital wallet” platform.

Indeed, managing school vouchers has become a big business. And, as Governor Greg Abbott and the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature gear up to pass their own program this session, private companies like ClassWallet are descending on the Capitol to lobby for the vouchers legislation and the lucrative contracts it could generate. This comes as other states have drawn scrutiny over myriad problems with the private contractors, including ClassWallet, they’ve hired to administer their voucher programs.

Senate Bill 2, which sailed through the upper chamber early last month, is a universal school voucher proposal that would give students $10,000 a year to attend private school or $2,000 for homeschooling. Lawmakers have initially set aside $1 billion in funding for the Texas school voucher program in 2027, though the Senate bill’s fiscal analysis says the program’s net cost could balloon to $3.8 billion by 2030.

The bill stipulates that up to 5 percent of appropriated funds may go to pay up to five outside vendors like ClassWallet, which the legislation calls “certified educational assistance organizations” (CEAOs), to act as middlemen between the state, parents, and private schools by processing program applications and voucher payments. If the bill were to pass, these private companies could soon be reeling in tens and even hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars per year. Read more

March 10, 2024

82% of K-12 schools recently experienced a cyber incident

A startling majority — 82% — of K-12 schools experienced a cyber incident between July 2023 and December 2024, according to a report released Thursday by the nonprofit Center for Internet Security.

While scattered data has long signaled school vulnerability to cyberattacks, the CIS report confirms how widespread the problem truly is.

The data shows that schools are “prime targets for cybercriminals,” the center’s report said. And the fallout from K-12 cyberattacks often extends beyond data loss, with disruptions to school meal service, forced school closures or blocked access to crucial student services like special education and counselling, according to the report.

The report further shared cybercriminals’ latest tactics and patterns for targeting K-12 systems. For instance, they are increasingly focusing on attacks to the human element of network vulnerabilities through phishing and social engineering rather than on technical weaknesses. This is often done by tricking staff into revealing login credentials by posing as trusted officials.

Additionally, cybercriminals are worsening disruptions by targeting important academic events like exam weeks, or exploiting staff and students’ reliance on digital tools. Read more

March 7, 2024

Do the TSTA Two-Step, contact House Pub Ed today

The House Public Education Committee will hold a public hearing on HB 3, the taxpayer-funded voucher bill for private schools, next Tuesday. They need to keep hearing from us that this bill, if enacted, would soon drain billions of dollars a year from our under-funded public schools, while providing tax subsidies to upper-income families whose children already attend private schools.

Wealthy families are major beneficiaries of similar universal voucher schemes that already have been enacted in other states, including Arizona, while many low-income parents, even with vouchers, can’t afford to send their children to private schools.

And, as reported this week by the San Antonio Express-News, critics also warn that many special education students would get left in public schools that already are severely underfunded and understaffed. Vouchers that would be offered to special education students wouldn’t come close to covering the high tuition charged by the few private schools that accept students with special needs.

Seventy-six House members, a bare majority, are co-sponsoring the voucher bill. So, the House vote is expected to be very close. The more voucher opponents that committee members hear from, the better. Your messages against the bill could make the difference between whether we win or lose this fight.

Many public-school districts in Texas are operating with large budget deficits because Gov. Abbott and the Legislature haven’t increased their basic per-student funding allotment since 2019. And these public schools will continue to educate the vast majority of Texas students. Public tax dollars belong in public schools and should not be diverted to private schools and their upper-income students.

Do the TSTA Two-Step: Tell the members of the Texas House Committee on Public Education that vouchers — by whatever name — divert state tax dollars from our neighborhood public schools to private businesses. Tell them to vote against vouchers!

Then submit your written testimony opposing vouchers to the committee through the House Public Comment form. All testimony becomes part of the public record.

March 5, 2024

Texas Senate panel advances bill requiring Ten Commandments in classrooms

A Texas Senate committee on Tuesday advanced bills that would require public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments and allow districts to provide students with time to pray during school hours.

The vote sends the two bills to the full Senate for consideration and is the latest sign of confidence by conservative Christians that courts will codify their opposition to church-state separation into federal law and spark a revitalization of faith in America.

That much was clear throughout the hearing, as supporters and some lawmakers argued that the legislation would reverse what they see as decades of national, moral decline.

“Our schools are not God-free zones,” said Sen. Mayes Middleton, a Galveston Republican who authored the school prayer bill and has argued that church-state separation is not real. “When prayer was taken out of our schools, things started to go downhill in America.”

The vote comes amid a broader push by conservative Christians to infuse more religion into public schools and life. In just the last few years, state Republicans have required classrooms to hang donated signs that say “In God We Trust”; allowed unlicensed religious chaplains to supplant mental health counselors in public schools; and approved new curriculum materials that teach the Bible and other religious texts alongside grade-school lessons. Read more

March 4, 2024

Neither of the Legislature’s voucher bills require private schools to accept certain students, which some warn could block the neediest children from access

In public hearings, during Capitol floor debates and in rooms packed with their constituents, Texas lawmakers have pitched school vouchers as a tool that will primarily benefit low-income students — and not just, as their critics argue, offer taxpayer dollars to families already sending their children to private schools.

“These are parents living paycheck by paycheck,” said Gov. Greg Abbott at a recent private school event in San Antonio. Families supporting his top legislative priority, he added, do “everything they can” to provide the best educational pathway for their children.

House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 2 — the signature school voucher proposals filed this year by each lawmaking chamber — would qualify virtually any family in Texas to receive taxpayer dollars through state-managed education savings accounts to fund their children’s private school tuition. If demand exceeds the $1 billion in proposed funding for the program, Republican lawmakers say they want to serve the most vulnerable Texans first.

“Both chambers are prioritizing low-income and special needs students, creating the largest school choice launch in the nation,” said Sen. Brandon Creighton, the Conroe Republican who leads the Senate Education Committee, in late February. “School choice” is a term used by voucher proponents who believe parents should have more options for where to send their kids beyond their local public school.

But both proposals’ broad eligibility — which would allow the vast majority of students in the state to apply — has prompted questions from education policy experts and public education advocates about whether Texas will live up to its promise of prioritizing the neediest children. Read more

February 28, 2024

Texas leaders quiet amid the biggest measles outbreak in decades

Amid Texas’ largest measles outbreak in 30 years, Gov. Greg Abbott and lawmakers from the hardest-hit areas have remained largely silent.

In just one month, cases have jumped from two to 124. There’s been the reported death of a child and 18 more people are hospitalized. Public health experts say Texas’ decreasing vaccination rates leave swaths of the state exposed to the contagious virus. State leaders haven’t addressed the outbreak publicly in press conferences or social media posts. There also haven’t been coordinated calls for people to consider getting vaccinated.

Why is this? Public health experts say the long-term consequences of the coronavirus pandemic have shaped Texas’ first major public health crisis since COVID.

“Everybody is so sensitive to the vaccine topic due to COVID,” said Ector County Judge Dustin Fawcett. “We need to be very careful about how we address this topic. … Our job is to provide the resources, not to tell people what they need to do.”

School districts in Texas are required to exclude unvaccinated students for at least 21 days after they’re exposed to measles, which can remain in the air for up to two hours after an infected person has left the area. However, to proactively exclude unvaccinated students before they’re known to be exposed requires the Texas health commissioner to declare a public health emergency.

Lara Anton, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said there are no plans to declare an emergency at this time. Read more

February 24, 2024

Senate to Vote on McMahon confirmation

Last week, in a 12-11 party-line vote, Linda McMahon’s nomination as Secretary of Education passed the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. The next step is a vote by the full Senate. That’s likely to happen soon—by the middle of this week—so there’s no time to waste. Urge senators to oppose her nomination with an email, phone call, or both.

NEA opposes Ms. McMahon’s nomination for many reasons. She would prioritize efforts to redirect public funds from public schools to private and religious schools, and carry out the Project 2025 plan to dismantle the Department of Education, privatize the student loan system, narrow fundamental student rights and protections, and more. Read more

February 22, 2024

West Texas measles cases rise to 90; Here is what you need to know

The number of measles cases in Texas has grown to 90 with two more West Texas counties reporting infections, according to the state health department update on Friday.

The West Texas measles outbreak — the largest in the state in 30 years — has spread from two cases in late January and now includes seven counties, most of them in the rural South Plains region: Dawson, Ector, Gaines, Lubbock, Lynn, Terry and Yoakum. The virus has also spread into eastern New Mexico. Five of the 90 infected in Texas so far were vaccinated and the remainder were unvaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown.

Sixteen of the 90 patients have been hospitalized and two more West Texas counties – Dawson and Ector – are now reporting their first cases. Gaines County now has the largest number of measles cases, growing from 45 earlier this week to 57. Terry County also increased from nine to 20. Read more

February 21, 2024

Parents Lose Appeal Over School’s Gender Identity Notification Policy

A federal appeals court has rejected a parental rights-based objection to a Massachusetts school district’s policy of allowing students to determine whether their parents should be notified about gender transitions and their choice of new names and pronouns.
The policy “plausibly creates a space for students to express their identity without worrying about parental backlash,” said a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, in Boston. “By cultivating an environment where students may feel safe in expressing their gender identity, the protocol endeavors to remove psychological barriers for transgender students and equalizes educational opportunities.”

The Feb. 18 decision in Foote v. Ludlow School Committee comes amid a conservative-led backlash to school policies supporting transgender students, including President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders declaring that there are only two sexes and instructing his administration to develop policies to prohibit public schools from assisting gender transitions and to bar transgender students from girls’ sports. The U.S. Supreme Court, with a six-justice conservative majority, has signaled a growing interest in transgender issues in education. Read more ($)

February 20, 2025

Under Texas House bill, value of education savings accounts would be tied to state and local funding

The Texas House filed priority legislation on Thursday that would allow some families to use taxpayer dollars to fund their children’s private school tuition, a bill that will likely rest at the center of one of the most contentious battles of this year’s legislative session.

Under House Bill 3, the state would distribute funds through state-managed education savings accounts that families could use for private school tuition and other educational expenses, like textbooks, transportation and therapy. Most participating students would receive 85% of the amount public schools get for each student through state and local funding. Read more

February 18, 2025

Texas House bill would ban cellphones in schools: ‘Kids are facing a mental health crisis’

Modeled by a national and statewide trend to lessen instances of bullying and keep students focused in schools, an Austin-area legislator is seeking to ban cellphones in Texas classrooms.

Texas House Bill 515 by Rep. Ellen Troxclair, R-Lakeway, would require Texas school districts to adopt a policy prohibiting students from using their personal electronic devices during the day and have them place their cellphones in a lockable container or specified location.

Amid myriad concerns such as bullying, student focus and teachers’ ability to manage a classroom, there has been a recent uptick in legislation similar to Troxclair’s filed across the country, a move that has largely been praised by mental health researchers but has left some parents worried about not having easy access to their children during the school day, especially during emergencies.

Troxclair’s main drive to file the bill was the harmful mental health effects of social media and students’ ability to access that content during the school day, she said. Social media use contributes to bullying issues, she said. Read more

February 13, 2025

In quest to infuse more religion into Texas schools, advocates say courts are now on their side

Emboldened by recent US Supreme Court rulings and President Donald Trump’s second term, conservative Christians are rallying behind a series of Texas bills that would further infuse religion into public education and potentially spark legal fights that could upend church-state separations.

Last week, the Texas Senate advanced a bill that would allow public taxpayer money to flow to private, religious schools via vouchers. And on Monday, Sens. Mayes Middleton of Galveston and Phil King of Weatherford filed bills, respectively, that would allow time for prayer in public schools and require classrooms to display the Ten Commandments — both of them priorities for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and co-sponsored by all 20 Republican senators.

The impact could extend beyond Texas. In the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, those on the religious right see an ally in their decades-long fight to crater the church-state wall and allow more Christianity in classrooms across the country. Read more

February 12, 2025

10 months after fatal Bastrop crash, lawmaker proposes seatbelts on all school buses

A bill in the Legislature would require Texas school districts to install seat belts on their school bus fleets, an extension of a current law, 10 months after a deadly school bus crash in Bastrop County placed new attention on the issue.

State Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, said the March 22 collision between a concrete pump truck and a Hays County school bus with 44 prekindergarten children and 11 adults prompted the proposal. The crash, which killed a 5-year-old boy and a man driving behind the bus, was the deadliest involving a school bus in nearly a decade.

“We just believe that having them physically restrained in their seats would help minimize – mitigate – any potential harm to the children,” Menéndez told the American-Statesman on Tuesday. “It is just some common sense.”

After the crash, parents of children aboard bus No. 1106 were angered by the Hays Consolidated School District’s decision to deploy a bus without restraints on the 25-mile each way trip to the Capital of Texas Zoo along a busy stretch of a two-lane highway. The district expedited plans to fully install seat belts on its bus fleet after the wreck. Read more

February 11, 2025

Texas Education Agency says schools ‘must not impede’ immigration enforcement on campuses

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said last week that school districts “must not impede federal officials” when they are conducting immigration enforcement raids on campuses.

The informal guidance came in a brief, three-paragraph letter to the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, a coalition of Democratic state lawmakers in the Texas House who requested guidance from Texas Education Agency last month after President Donald Trump took office and directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to step up deportations, leading to a U.S. Homeland Security Department announcement that schools, churches and other “sensitive” spaces would no longer be protected from immigration raids.

That operation has affected Austin, where many undocumented immigrants have been lying low since Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

In the absence of guidance from the TEA, Central Texas districts in recent weeks have issued their own rules for how their staff members should interact with federal officers.

The rules vary but are far more detailed than the guidance Morath offered in his letter, which a TEA spokesperson said would only be shared with school districts upon request.

In the letter, Morath — an appointee of Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who has made border security a major focus — told members of the caucus that school districts must follow state and federal law. He noted that existing statutes allow schools to verify the identities of campus visitors “including municipal, state, and federal law enforcement officials,” and said that visitors shouldn’t be allowed on a campus without a legitimate reason to be there.

But one of the letter’s biggest takeaways came in this sentence: “As with any visit by a state law enforcement officer carrying out official duties, campus personnel must not impede federal officials.”

February 10, 2025

Legislature considers paying much more for school safety

Since Texas passed a law in 2023 requiring public school districts to have an armed officer at each campus, districts have repeatedly asked the state for more money to fulfill the requirement.

In this year’s legislative session, lawmakers have pledged to increase school safety funding. The 2023 law, House Bill 3, increased that annual safety allotment to $10 per student and $15,000 per school in a district.

The question legislators face this session: will they come close to increasing that allotment to the $100 per student that districts say is necessary to finally fill the funding gap?

HB 3 passed in response to the 2022 shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde that left 19 children and two teachers dead. But since its passage, more than half of Texas school districts do not meet the one armed officer per school requirement, according to a January Senate Education Committee report. Read more

February 9, 2025

Texas reports new measles outbreak in West Texas

At least 10 cases of measles — eight of which are among school-aged children — have been reported in Gaines County in West Texas over the past two weeks, driving worries of an escalating outbreak.

Of the cases so far, seven have been hospitalized, according to a Texas Health and Human Services alert. All were unvaccinated and residents of Gaines County, which has a population of about 22,000 and borders New Mexico.

“Due to the highly contagious nature of this disease, additional cases are likely to occur in Gaines County and the surrounding communities,” the alert said.

The new cases come more than a week after Texas health officials reported two Measles cases out of Gaines County, both involving unvaccinated school-aged children. Both children were hospitalized in Lubbock and later discharged. Earlier this week, state health officials said the number of cases had grown to six. Since then, cases have increased further. Read more

February 8, 2025

UT-Dallas students launch alternative newspaper after clash with administration

In late January, the University of Texas at Dallas removed most newspaper stands that once held its official student publication: The Mercury.

The student-produced newspaper hadn’t published a physical edition since last fall after students went on strike over the firing of its editor, Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez, who defended the organization’s coverage of pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

In the following months, Olivares Gutierrez and his colleagues launched an alternative news organization The Retrograde. The students published the first hardcopy edition Jan. 23, one day after the newsstands were removed from campus.

Without newsstands, Olivares Gutierrez and his fellow student journalists passed out by hand more than a thousand copies. Read more

February 7, 2025

Texas lawmakers may ban certain lessons at state colleges under expanded DEI crackdown

This year, the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature is expected to pick up where it left off two years ago to address a perceived liberal bias at the state’s public, four-year universities.

Republican lawmakers plan to ensure universities are complying with a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion offices, programs and training passed last session. They are expected to file legislation that would limit the influence of professors on their campuses, many of whom they accuse of being “woke” activists. They have vowed to crack down on antisemitism in the wake of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, which will likely reignite discussions over free speech on campus. And they are proposing again to end in-state tuition for undocumented students.

Legislation that could improve students’ futures — either by helping them pay for college or encouraging them to enter a high-demand field – are also under consideration.

About 1.4 million Texans are enrolled in the state’s public higher education system, which includes 36 universities, 50 community and junior college districts, one technical college system and 14 health-related institutions. The Legislature allocated $11.5 billion to higher education in fiscal year 2025, according to a report by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. Read more

February 6, 2025

Texas bill that lets families use tax dollars for private schools swiftly sails through Senate

The Texas Senate voted 19-12 on Wednesday evening to advance legislation that would create a state-managed education savings account program.

What is Senate Bill 2? Under the bill, families could receive $10,000 a year per student in public taxpayer dollars to fund their children’s tuition at an accredited private school and other expenses like textbooks, transportation and therapy.

Children with disabilities would receive $11,500 per year. It also would provide at least $2,000 a year per student for home-schooling families who participate in the program. Home-schooling students with disabilities could receive $2,500 a year for therapy.

Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, questioned how the program would ensure it does not foster more segregation in the state’s education system. Read more

February 5, 2025

Trump administration drafting executive order to initiate Department of Education’s elimination

The Trump administration has begun drafting an executive order that would kick off the process of eliminating the Department of Education, the latest move by President Donald Trump to swiftly carry out his campaign promises, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN.

The move would come in two parts, the sources said. The order would direct the secretary of Education to create a plan to diminish the department through executive action.

Trump would also push for Congress to pass legislation to end the department, as those working on the order acknowledge that shuttering the department would require Congress’ involvement. Read more

February 4, 2025

Trump is weighing big cuts to the US Education Department

The Trump administration is exploring dramatic cuts to programs and staff at the U.S. Department of Education, including executive action shuttering department programs that are not protected by law and calling on Congress to close the department entirely.

The executive action could come as early as this week, according to multiple government sources who were not cleared to discuss the administration’s plans publicly.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

News of the Trump administration’s plans was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

This potential executive action comes after the Trump administration, in recent days, placed dozens of Education Department staff on paid administrative leave with little explanation, saying only that the moves were the result of President Trump’s executive action targeting federal diversity programs.

February 3, 2025

Abbott vows vouchers, pay raises for teachers and more property tax relief

Governor Greg Abbott touted Texas’ economic strength and set an agenda focused on continuing its business-friendly policies, cutting down on property taxes for homeowners and passing a school voucher-like program in his sixth State of the State address on Sunday evening.

Held in front of 1,100 people, including members of the House and Senate, at Arnold Oil Company in Austin, Abbott’s speech highlighted the newly created Texas Stock Exchange, and he said it will make the state the financial capital of America, nodding to how Texas has been named the best state to do business in for two decades.

Abbott highlighted seven emergency items to focus on during this legislative session: property tax relief, investment in water, bail reform, a new Texas Cyber Command to amp up cybersecurity, teacher pay, career training and school choice.

Abbott said Texas “must be No. 1 in educating our children” and prioritized legislation that would allow parents to take public dollars from the state and use them toward their child’s private education – a long-brewing issue he’s been crusading on.

The traditional Democratic response was a 10-minute prerecorded video with average Texans talking about the “state of their state,” including a San Antonio public school teacher who said Abbott’s pushing of a school voucher experiment could endanger schools and classrooms like hers.

“Private school vouchers are not for most families, they’re for wealthy families that already send their kids to private schools,” Dior Edison said. “Kids with disabilities, kids in rural areas and vital school programs will suffer the most.” Read more

February 1, 2025

Legal rights groups urge school leaders not to adopt Texas’ Bible-infused curriculum

A coalition of legal organizations on Thursday called on Texas school district leaders to reject the adoption of a recently approved state curriculum heavily infused with references to Christianity and biblical teachings.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Center for Inquiry and the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent superintendents and their school boards a letter Thursday telling them that adopting the curriculum, called Bluebonnet Learning, would “unlawfully impose a set of religious beliefs upon your students and violate their constitutionally guaranteed right to be free from religious coercion.”

The letter suggests a willingness by the groups to take legal action to stop Texas schools from adopting the materials.

“Our organizations, which have long fought for religious freedom for all, will closely monitor any school district across the state that considers implementing the Bluebonnet curriculum and will take any action that is necessary and appropriate to protect the rights of Texas children and their parents,” the letter reads. Read more

January 30, 2025

Voucher bill could destabilize retiree pension fund

This could occur if the number of students leaving public schools for private schools causes even a modest reduction in the public education workforce, the Teacher Retirement System advised the Legislative Budget Board. As noted in the LBB’s actuarial analysis of SB 2, the Senate voucher bill, “even a small adjustment, such as a decrease in the projected covered payroll growth (for public education), could be enough for the pension fund to no longer be actuarially sound according to the statutory definition.”

TRS also noted that if education payroll decreases from its projected rate, school employees or districts may have to pay higher contributions into the pension fund. Employee contribution rates already have been increased in prior legislative sessions, cutting into the pay of teachers and support staff.

Under the current Pension Review Board Pension Funding Guidelines, funding should be adequate to amortize the unfunded actuarial accrued liability over a period that should not exceed 30 years as of Sept. 1, 2025, and not to exceed 15 years after Sept. 1, 2040. But the LBB noted that, according to TRS’ actuarial analysis, even “a 1 percent per year decline in active population (public school payroll) would increase the funding period to 35 years and take 12 years for the unfunded actuarial accrued liability to stop growing and begin to decline.”

Then more funding — from higher employee contributions, state appropriations or both — would be required to stabilize the pension fund.

January 28, 2025

Say NO to vouchers!

Today, TSTA submitted the following testimony to the Senate Education K-16 Committee:

The Texas State Teachers Association vehemently opposes any school voucher scheme that diverts funding from our already underfunded Texas public school system. Lawmakers should work to increase appropriations to public schools, not divert taxpayer funds to private schools.

At the start of the 89th legislative session, the Texas public school finance outlook is bleak. Last summer many Texas school districts faced a budget deficit and were forced to approve layoffs, cut programs, and close schools. Texas students are losing their extracurricular activities, librarians, teachers, and community schools, while being placed into larger class sizes.

As teachers are starting the new school year, inadequate school funding has had a negative impact on morale. In a recent survey of Texas teachers, 65 percent of those surveyed said they were seriously considering leaving the teaching profession and 33 percent of surveyed teachers said they have had to take extra jobs during the school year to make financial ends meet for their families. These teachers spent an average of $856 out of pocket a year for school supplies and $405 a month on health insurance. Texas teachers work tirelessly for their students and deserve a state leadership that will invest in them and their districts, not a state leadership that wants to defund public schools in favor of taxpayer-funded private school vouchers. Read the rest of our testimony to the committee

January 27, 2025

Several bills filed to weaken vaccine mandates as more Texas families opt out of immunizations

Views about the pandemic response shifted dramatically as Texans emerged from lockdowns and the COVID-19 vaccine became more widely available. Beginning in March 2020, Gov. Greg Abbott swiftly called executive orders that closed businesses and schools as infections spread in the United States; by November, he was resisting calls for more lockdowns.

Many Texans are still wary of health mandates, as seen by declining vaccine rates. And now, public health officials and advocates worry the drop might get steeper — and that previously eradicated diseases like measles and polio might make a comeback — as a flurry of newly filed bills at the Texas Legislature seeks to roll back vaccine requirements. Read more

January 26, 2025

Social media isn’t the only cause of mental health woes among Texas youth, advocates say

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says examining social media for youth is a legislative priority for the Texas Senate. So far, lawmakers have filed six bills this legislative session to address the issue, including legislation that would prohibit minors from creating accounts on social media sites and that would require age verification for new users.

A state House and Senate joint committee met twice over the last four months to listen to hours of testimony on how the online world is affecting minors. Lawmakers classify social media as “the most dangerous thing our kids have legal access to in Texas.”

But social media is just one reason for the surge in youth mental health problems, according to mental health providers, advocates and school officials. They say addressing social media shouldn’t come at the expense of building up the state’s mental health providers and funding life-changing programs on the brink of extinction. Bills have yet to be filed that meaningfully address workforce shortages in the mental health field beyond sharing workers with other states and loan repayment programs that have been in place for years. The state is unlikely to fully replace the more than $19 billion Texas schools received in COVID-19 relief funds, a large percentage of which went to address youth mental health needs. Read more

January 25, 2025

Tell the members of Senate Ed to vote NO on Vouchers!

Vouchers — by whatever name — divert state tax dollars from our neighborhood public schools to private businesses.

Texas public schools, where the vast majority of students will continue to be educated, are underfunded. Texas school districts have not received an increase to the per-student Basic Allotment since 2019. With a $20 billion surplus and $23 billion balance in the Rainy Day Fund, as forecast by the state comptroller, the Legislature has no excuse not to increase funding for public schools. Public tax dollars belong in public schools, not diverted to private business interests.

Help us tell the members of the Texas Senate Education Committee to vote NO on Senate Bill 2 next week! Contact the committee members today!

January 24, 2025

State lawmakers ask education agency for guidance on how Texas schools can respond to Trump’s immigration plans

A group of Texas lawmakers on Thursday urged education officials to issue “clear and detailed guidance” to school districts on how to prepare for federal immigration enforcement after the Trump administration eliminated a policy that long prevented officers from making arrests on school grounds.

The Mexican American Legislative Caucus sent a letter to Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath calling on the department to provide direction to school districts on protecting student records, establishing procedures for interacting with immigration authorities and providing mental health resources for anxious and fearful students.

The prospect of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers “entering classrooms to detain and remove students presents an unimaginable threat to Texas children’s physical safety, emotional wellbeing, and ability to learn,” the lawmakers’ letter says. “It is imperative that the TEA act swiftly to protect the integrity of our educational institutions and the wellbeing of our students by ensuring that Texas schools are fully informed of their rights and responsibilities when faced with federal immigration enforcement actions.”

A state education agency spokesperson referred The Texas Tribune to Gov. Greg Abbott’s office for comment. Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Read more

January 23, 2025

Senate, House budgets spend $1 billion on private schools, fail to meet needs of public school students and educators

Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina released the following statement:

The proposed legislative budgets set aside $1 billion of our taxes for private school vouchers, while continuing to underfund our public schools, where most Texas children will continue to be educated. This is simply wrong and a failure of the Legislature’s constitutional duty to adequately fund public education.

Lt. Gov. Patrick claims the money set aside for public K‐12 education would “fully fund” the Foundation School Program, including enrollment growth. But educators know our public schools aren’t fully funded now. If they were, we wouldn’t have so many districts cutting programs and staff as they struggle to operate with deficit‐ridden budgets. Our school districts need a substantial increase in the basic per‐student funding allotment, which hasn’t been increased since 2019. Experts say the basic allotment must be increased by at least $1,000 or more per student to simply keep up with inflation, which has been eroding school budgets while Gov. Greg Abbott and Patrick have been promoting tax giveaways for private schools.

Read full statement

January 22, 2025

Trump administration strips schools, churches of immigration enforcement protections

Immigration authorities can now enter schools, healthcare facilities and places of worship to conduct arrests, according to a new policy from the Department of Homeland Security.

“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”

The directive, which covers agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, rescinds guidance from the Biden administration that created “protected areas” that primarily consisted of places where “children gather, disaster or emergency relief sites, and social services establishments.”

The Biden-era guideline mandated that immigration enforcement operations shouldn’t take place in or near a location that would limit peoples’ access to “essential” services or activities. Read more

January 21, 2025

President Trump’s Early Actions Undo Biden Efforts to Protect LGBTQ+ Students

President Donald Trump on his first day in office swiftly ended Biden administration efforts to extend Title IX discrimination protections to transgender students as part of a sweeping executive order that makes it U.S. policy to recognize only two sexes. The executive order was one of a handful of actions around gender identity on Trump’s first day in office. It emanated from promises the Republican made on the campaign trail that continued as a throughline to his inaugural address.

The executive order defining sex as male and female calls for official government documents like passports and visas to allow applicants to describe themselves as only male or female. It also directs the attorney general to instruct government agencies that civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination based on sex—such as Title IX, the federal law outlawing sex discrimination at federally funded schools—can’t be expanded to apply to discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, as the Biden administration had done.

It’s that move that could lead the U.S. Department of Education to issue new guidance to schools with instructions on applying Title IX more narrowly.

Trump signed the gender identity order along with several others in the Oval Office Monday evening following a series of speeches and public appearances earlier in the day. It’s one of the few from Trump’s first-day batch that appear to directly affect schools. Read more

January 17, 2025

Greg Abbott wants to extend Texas’ DEI ban to K-12 schools

As Texas lawmakers wrap up the first week of the 2025 legislative session, Governor Greg Abbott has signaled another public education priority he wants on their list: banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in K-12 public schools.

“No taxpayer dollars will be used to fund DEI in our schools,” Abbott said in a post on the social media platform X on Thursday, using the acronym for diversity efforts. “Schools must focus on fundamentals of education, not indoctrination.”

Barring DEI efforts at K-12 schools would expand a statewide ban for colleges and universities approved two years ago. The governor’s office did not immediately respond to questions from The Texas Tribune on Friday seeking more details on Abbott’s remarks.

His comments came in response to a series of videos posted by Corey DeAngelis, a senior fellow at the American Culture Project, allegedly showing a Richardson school district official answering questions from an individual who recorded the interaction and asked whether the district would allow a transgender girl to share a room with other students on a field trip. The school official, identified as the district’s executive DEI director, said the district would respond to the situation on a case-by-case basis with parental input. Read more

January 16, 2025

Greg Abbott threatens Texas A&M president’s job over claim that university broke DEI ban

Governor Greg Abbott threatened Texas A&M University President Mark Welsh III’s job over claims the university broke the state’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

The threat came after conservative activist Christopher Rufo shared a university email inviting some staffers and PhD students to attend a conference that limited participation to people who are Black, Hispanic or Native American.

On Monday, someone asked Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton on social media whether they were going to tolerate the behavior.

“Hell, no,” Abbott replied hours later on X, formerly known as Twitter. “It’s against Texas law and violates the U.S. Constitution. It will be fixed immediately or the president will soon be gone.” Read more

January 15, 2025

Schools brace for clash with immigration officials ahead of Trump term

K-12 schools across the US are gearing up for potential efforts to shield their students as the incoming Trump administration sets its sights on deporting millions of people.

Administrators and teachers’ unions are looking to build relationships and provide resources for students and families without legal status as President-elect Trump has pledged the largest mass deportation in history, floating the end of policies barring immigration raids at schools and places of worship.

School officials and advocates are ensuring staff understand the rights to privacy that immigrant students have and how to tackle other issues that may arise such as slipping attendance as undocumented families fear the worst. Read more

January 14, 2025

Dustin Burrows voted Texas House speaker in blow to insurgent GOP movement

Representative Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, was elected speaker of the Texas House on Tuesday, concluding a bitter and intense power struggle within the Republican Party that came down to an extraordinary floor vote to decide who would fill one of the most powerful positions in state government.

In his acceptance speech, Burrows focused on his desire to keep the House an independent institution, where lawmakers could feel free to disagree with one another without fear of repercussion.

“This is the people’s House,” said Burrows, who was joined by his wife Elisabeth and three sons for his swearing-in ceremony.

He promised to work with every member of the Legislature, leaving his door open even to those who opposed him. Read more

January 13, 2025

Texas Legislature 101: How bills become laws — and how you can participate in the process

Texas’ 2025 legislative session starts tomorrow, January 14, and runs through June 2. Lawmakers will debate a bevy of issues and pass hundreds of bills that affect all Texans’ lives.

Here’s how it works, and what you can do to participate:

The Texas Legislature includes the House of Representatives, which has 150 members and is known as the lower chamber. The Senate has 31 members and is known as the upper chamber. Each representative and senator represents a geographic district. As a result of the 2024 elections, Republicans hold 88 of the 150 seats in the House and 20 of the 31 seats in the Senate. The House speaker, which presides over the House chamber, is one of the 150 representatives in that chamber and is elected by a majority of members. The lieutenant governor presides over the Senate and is elected by Texas voters every four years.

During odd-numbered years, the state Legislature gathers in January for 140 days to pass a two-year state budget and other laws, which is known as a regular legislative session.

Lawmakers have been filing bills since Nov. 12, 2024. In general, lawmakers can continue filing bills during the first 60 calendar days of the legislative session. After that point, only bills related to local matters or emergency items and appropriations can be filed, unless four-fifths of lawmakers are present in a chamber vote to suspend the rule. Read more

January 12, 2025

Sign up now for TSTA’s Virtual Winter Academy 2025; it’s free

Designed with early career educators in mind, TSTA’s Virtual Winter Academy 2025 will include topics ranging from your rights as an educator to evaluations and the Safe Schools Act to taking care of your own well-being. Join colleagues from across the state for an informative and inspiring program on Saturday, Jan. 25 from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Central Time.

Both current TSTA members and potential members are invited! This event is free of charge, but registration is required to receive Zoom information. Click here to register. Please share this invitation with your co-workers.

January 11, 2025

Members: Apply for funding! Attend TSTA’s free virtual workshop on 2025 grants for educators

TSTA is hosting an introductory workshop on grant funding opportunities specifically designed for PreK-12 school educators. This free training opportunity is available only to TSTA members.

The session will feature grant programs funded by the NEA Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities and additional grantors dedicated to the professional learning of teachers and the advancement of student learning — inside and outside the classroom. Participants will remain connected to grant opportunities and resources and will have access to announcements and collaborative partnerships with educators working on grant applications in Texas.

This workshop will be conducted online on Thursday, Jan. 23, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Central Time. Here is the Zoom link.

The presenter will be Rod Joseph Rodríguez, a secondary language arts teacher at an early college high school in Austin. He is the author of numerous books, including Youth Scribes: Teaching a Love of Writing (Heinemann, 2025), and the recipient of grant awards that directly influence student learning experiences and his own professional growth as an educator. Rod is a former editor of the English Journal. He and his students are readers of banned and challenged books.

Participants in the introductory workshop session will:

Learn how to research potential sources of grant funds in education.
Identify grant writing terms, parts of an application and preparation of documents.
Find local and state sources to justify the need for a grant and collaboration.

January 10, 2025

UT-Austin’s presidency goes vacant amid growing challenges for Texas public university leaders

The upcoming departure of University of Texas at Austin President Jay Hartzell has signaled in the public higher education space just how difficult it has become to be a university president amid growing political pressures.

Although Hartzell said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News that the state’s political climate was not a factor in his decision to leave UT for Southern Methodist University, he also said he would appreciate not having to go to the Texas Capitol as often.

In recent years, Texas’ public universities have had to deal with constant pressure from conservative leaders who want to correct what they view as liberal bias. Universities are having to navigate the state’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion offices and are also dealing with threats to end tenure or target faculty senates.

According to the American Council on Education, 55% of university presidents plan to step down in the next five years. Read more

January 9, 2025

Texas is silent on whether it will offer summer food assistance for students

Texas has yet to opt into a $2 billion grocery program that gives low-income families an extra $120 per child to help feed them during the summer despite the state having nearly 4 million children eligible for the program.

So far, 40 states have chosen to participate in the program. Texas missed the Jan. 1 deadline to let the U.S. Department of Agriculture know if it would participate. The state still has other chances to join, however, the decision lies with the state Legislature to approve the cost of administering the program.

The state would receive an estimated $400 million in federal dollars if it opts into the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer program. State taxpayers would have to foot about $55 million in administrative costs, according to Feeding Texas, a network of 20 food banks.

Families would qualify for the meal benefits if their children qualify for free or reduced-priced lunches during the school year. In 2024, a family of four with an annual income of $40,560 or less would be eligible for free school lunch. That same family would have to make $57,720 or less per year to qualify for reduced lunch. Read more

January 8, 2025

Schools around the US are weighing responses to possible immigration raids

Schools around the country are reviewing what to do if immigration agents come knocking as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office after campaigning on a pledge to deport millions of people.

In several large cities, school systems are speaking up for the rights of immigrant students to attend school, regardless of whether they are in the country legally, and saying they would not assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. In California, officials this week offered guidance to schools on state law limiting local participation in immigration enforcement.

“I know there is a lot of fear and anxiety around the incoming administration’s anticipated changes to immigration policy,” California Attorney General Bonta said, “and I want to make sure students, their parents, and their teachers and school administrators are prepared.”

The 54-page California guide outlines state and federal protections for students and procedures for responding to law enforcement requests ranging from documents to interviews with students.

Many communities debated how much and whether schools should cooperate with immigration authorities during Trump’s first administration, when school systems including Chicago’s took stands against immigration enforcement. Read more

January 7, 2025

Senate committee announces delay for Ed Sec confirmation hearing

The Senate HELP Committee, the panel overseeing the confirmation of President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Education Department, says it is still waiting for documents from the transition team before it can proceed with the hearing. Linda McMahon’s confirmation is now not likely to take place until after Inauguration Day, according to committee chair Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA). He added: “It really depends on us getting paperwork. Right now the hold seems to be on their side.” Current Education Secretary Miguel Cardona’s confirmation hearing took place on February 3 2021, a fortnight after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, while predecessor Betsy DeVos’ hearing occurred on January 17 2017, just three days after Donald Trump was first sworn into office. Read more

January 6, 2025

A Texas teenager helped his border community win a $13 million grant to improve the environment

When he was 13, Ramon Rodriguez stood before the Presidio City Council. He had a vision for his hometown, a hot, arid border community.

He wanted the council to create a department dedicated to preserving the environment. The department would install composting bins around town, and build greenhouses and tree nurseries that collect water. Part of the town would be dedicated green spaces where building would be prohibited.

The council, with its shoestring budget, did not adopt his suggestions.

That decision in 2018 did not deter Rodriguez, who has looked for ways to put his plan in place piecemeal. Then, late last year, Rodriguez learned the region won a $13 million federal grant he helped write. Read more

January 5, 2025

Social Security Fairness Act signed into law, expanding retirement benefits for teachers

On Sunday afternoon, President Joe Biden signed a Social Security bill into law that repeals statutes that diminished payouts to teachers, firefighters, and other public sector workers. One of the statutes the Social Security Fairness Act repeals, the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), was enacted in 1983 and reduced Social Security benefits for workers receiving government pensions not covered by Social Security. The Social Security Fairness Act also repeals the Government Pension Offset (GPO), which was enacted in 1977 and shrunk benefits for spouses, widows and widowers with spouses receiving public sector pensions. “The bill I’m signing today is about a simple proposition: Americans who have worked hard all their lives to earn an honest living should be able to retire with economic security and dignity,” Biden said. He added that the bill should lead to an estimated average monthly increase of $360 for certain public employees and their spouses and survivors. More than 2.5m Americans are set to receive a lump sum payment worth “thousands of dollars” to make up for the shortfall and the benefits they should have received last year. The bill will cost $196bn over the next 10 years, according to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office. Read more