A Texas teachers union is calling on lawmakers to pass legislation next year that will boost teacher pay, increase school funding and stop what union leaders say are “droves” of educators leaving the state.
Texas AFT on Tuesday released its “Educator’s Bill of Rights,” which outlines 10 rights, including reasonable working conditions, quality child care, freedom of religion in schools and a secure retirement.
“These items are not on our wish list,” Rena Honea, president of Alliance-AFT in Dallas, said during a virtual news conference. “They’re rights as Texas educators.”
She said the group will urge lawmakers to sign elements of the Educator’s Bill of Rights into law in next year’s legislative session – such as increasing the basic allotment for schools, defining a workday as 480 minutes, and requiring districts to provide unemployment pay to bus drivers and cafeteria workers.
"Our union of 66,000 Texas teachers, support staff, professors and retirees will not let those lawmakers walk all over us,” she said. “Our kids are worth way too much to let that happen. And quite frankly, we're worth too much too.”
The state’s teacher attrition rate was 12.2% between 2023 and 2024, according to data from the Texas Education Agency.
Texas AFT is the largest teacher organization in North Texas and the second largest in the state.
Texas AFT president Zeph Capo said it’s time Texas lawmakers increased the state’s education budget, untouched since 2019. Some legislators, he said, will say they added money to the budget.
“Please do not fall for the hype where they say they've put more money into public schools, because all of that money went straight out the back door and (into) a property tax cut,” he said.
Property taxes largely fund public education in Texas and most other states.
In the last legislative session, with a $33 billion state funding surplus, state lawmakers prepared budgets to add money for schools, safety, pay raises, mental health services and other education needs. But Gov. Greg Abbott didn’t sign any because they lacked additional millions for voucher-like Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). He had warned lawmakers that without ESAs, he’d sign no education funding bill.
AFT’s Educator’s Bill of Rights counters the parental rights bills from Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that tried to establish ESAs and gave parents the right to “inspect the books and other reading materials in the library of their child's school.”
The Bill of Rights states that educators have a right to “fully funded public schools” and to “teach curriculum free from religious indoctrination.”
Bill Zeeble is KERA’s education reporter. Got a tip? Email Bill at bzeeble@kera.org. You can follow him on X @bzeeble.
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