Time for educators to fight back

 

Elections have consequences, folks, and beginning this week Texas educators are going to get a preview of what some of these consequences may be for their jobs, their students and their students’ families. And you are not going to like what you see coming from either Austin or Washington.

So, it is time to start pushing back.

The new session of the Texas Legislature convened today in Austin, where public education, educators and students remain under attack. Even though schools are woefully under-funded, the legislative majority, egged on by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, will consider spending as much as $3 billion of local school tax revenue for other state programs and stealing from what’s left of the public education budget for private school vouchers.

Your state legislators need to hear from you – early and often:

# Demand that they reject vouchers and other privatization schemes, including education savings accounts.

# Demand that they spend your local school tax dollars on what you paid them for – education.

# Demand that they dip into the state’s Rainy Day Fund to increase school funding. This savings account is for emergencies, and school funding is an emergency. The fund was not approved by Texas voters to be hoarded by ideologically driven state leaders who are intent on reducing government, beginning with education. The Rainy Day Fund’s balance is approaching $12 billion, a definite bright spot in an economy and revenue stream recovering from the recent plunge in oil prices.

# Demand that your legislators abolish or significantly cut back on the STAAR testing regime, which continues to unnecessarily stress our children and rob them of valuable learning time.

# Demand that they repeal the A-F school grading system, which will put more stress on STAAR testing and do absolutely nothing to improve public education.

As the session unfolds, TSTA will alert you to more issues as well as developments in these. To learn who your state representative and state senator are and how to contact them, click on this link and enter your home address. Then contact them:

http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/Home.aspx

Meanwhile, any educator who took a gamble on Donald Trump for president rolled the dice for an all-out attack from Washington on public schools, and the person who will lead the charge is Trump’s choice for education secretary, Betsy DeVos. A billionaire member of the Amway family, DeVos has no experience in public education (not even as a student) and knows nothing about it, but she has been spending a lot of time and money trying to dismantle and privatize it.

In her home state of Michigan, DeVos fought to undermine public schools with tax cuts for the wealthy. She also advocated for vouchers to divert tax dollars from public education so private schools and for-profit charters could profit off taxpayers with little or no accountability. Now, DeVos and Trump want to wage their campaign across the nation.

DeVos’ Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for next week. If she wins committee approval, the full Senate is expected to vote on her confirmation within a few weeks. Tell Texas’ two U.S. senators – John Cornyn and Ted Cruz — that you oppose DeVos’ confirmation and why.

https://www.cornyn.senate.gov/?

https://www.cruz.senate.gov/

It will take time for election consequences to play out, so educators still have opportunities to make a difference – but only if we speak up and demand that lawmakers listen.

 

 

 

 

 

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