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The 88th Legislative Session and resources

TSTA is following the special session closely, especially as it pertains to property taxation (and therefore school funding). Be on the lookout for alerts from our Government Relations team for ways to take action as the session progresses.

The Legislature convened for its 88th biennial regular session on Tuesday, January 10, 2023. This session, TSTA’s priorities—in addition to killing private school vouchers again—are more funding for public schools, including pay raises for educators; a cost-of-living increase and better healthcare benefits for TRS retirees and a substantial increase in the state’s contribution to healthcare costs for active educators. Our Top Education Issues page has more information about what we’re fighting for this session.

As an educator, your voice will be critical to keeping lawmakers on the right track, doing what is best for students, educators, retirees and public schools. We will send you updates throughout the session on important legislation and opportunities to reach out to your legislators. Sign up for these updates today.

The Texas Tribune also has an explainer for the longstanding and new education issues the Legislature is set to consider.

TSTA and 20 other advocate groups have joined together to make recommendations to the Legislature for addressing serious concerns about charter schools in Texas.

Committee Testimony

Follow our advocacy efforts at the Capitol! TSTA represents the interests of our members and Texas students through lobbying efforts and testimony during session.

Support school safety and mental health, oppose CSSB 11

Removing teacher certification requirements will undermine the importance of high-quality early learning

TSTA does not support giving privilege to certain prior experiences that are unrelated to education, nor do we support lowering the standards for entry into the profession

TSTA is concerned that bill will unfairly threaten educators with criminal charges for maintaining diverse libraries

TSTA has concerns with bill overhauling minimum salary schedule

TSTA opposes bill revoking SBOE’s ability to veto SBEC rules

TSTA opposes bill increasing the number of guns on campuses

TSTA opposes bill increasing the presence of inadequately trained, non-law enforcement personnel on campuses

HB 1707 — Factsheet on charter permitting bill; TSTA opposes

HPE April 18, 2023 — Opposing SSES Expansion

HPE April 18, 2023 — Opposing expansion of charter school opening timeline

HB 2729 — Opposing lowering teacher qualifications for PreK

HB 4969 — more member testimony, more voucher schemes

HB 4340 — member testimony, yet another voucher scheme

HB 11 — Concerns with bill removing SBOE authority to review SBEC rules

House Pub Ed — HB 100, Insufficient increase to the basic allotment

Member testimony on HB 100

Senate Subcommittee on Higher Education — TFA on protecting tenure

Education groups oppose HB 2890 — SBOE voting requirements for charter application approval

TSTA Opposes HB 3 — state mandated armed security on campuses

Testimony on HB 1416 regarding STAAR tutoring requirements

TSTA supports HB 1225 — allow parents to opt their students out of online STAAR testing

Comments on Texas Education Agency budget

TSTA opposes HB 621 — TSTA believes Veterans must still be certified to become classroom teachers

Behavioral Specialist budget rider request

House Appropriations — February 27, 2023

Senate Finance — February 6, 2023

HB31 — Enrollment based funding

Agency Testimony

TSTA hosts a team of dedicated educational policy experts to represent the interests of TSTA members and students at the State Board of Education, State Board for Educator Certification and the Texas Education Agency. Here we’ll post recent testimony that we’ve presented to these agencies and to House and Senate committees.

TEA: ESSA proposed Amendment

TEA: Teacher Incentive Allotment rule comments

TEA: Concerning school safety requirements

SBEC: Concerning counseling public school students