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My name is Kimberlee Gosney and I am pursuing a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction with teacher certification from Angelo State University. I plan to graduate in either Fall 2019 or Spring 2020 and obtain a fourth or fifth grade teaching position.

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Option 2 - Texas Classroom Teachers Association

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Option 2 - Texas Classroom Teachers Association

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The Texas Classroom Teachers Association (TCTA) offer legal assistance to teachers and opinions on legislative issues.

Issue 1:  The commissioner of education in Texas amended rules regarding teaching of ESL classes.  Teachers of ESL students are now required to be certified.  Schools have two methods of providing services to ESL students: in classroom or private teaching with a certified specialist (Texas Classroom Teachers Association, 2018, p. 7).

Issue 2:
The sweeping changes in Congress with the recent elections show a change in attitudes towards education legislation with five new members being former teachers.  With the change and a sense of momentum, the Keeping All Students Safe Act reintroduced by House and Senate Democrats addresses "any personnel conducting restraint be certified by a state-approved crisis intervention training program" (Texas Classroom Teachers Association, 2018, p. 16).

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Option 2 - Texas State Teachers Association

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Option 2 - Texas State Teachers Association

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The Texas State Teachers Association (TSTA) provides guidance and resources for Texas teachers addressing legislative issues, classroom lesson plans, benefits for teachers, and new educator support.

Issue 1: School funding of Texas public schools ranks "36th among the states and the District of Columbia" (Texas State Teachers Association, 2019, para. 1).  TSTA believes availability of funds through different avenues at the state level should be allocated to the schools.

Issue 2: The socioeconomic levels of school districts affect student performance leading to lower scores on STAAR tests.  The lower scores lead school districts in low-income areas to receive lower letter grades in the new letter grading system.  TSTA advocates for removing or revising the state letter grading system of school districts (Texas State Teachers Association, 2019, para. 8).

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School Funding

Increasing state funding for public education remains a top TSTA priority. Funding per student in average daily attendance (ADA) is about $2,300 less than the national average, ranking Texas 36th among the states and the District of Columbia, based on the latest National Education Association rankings. The state's share of the Foundation School Program has dropped to 38 percent, leaving the remaining 62 percent to be paid by local property taxpayers. Gov. Greg Abbott has offered a proposal that would put tighter limits on school property taxes. But you can't effectively limit property taxes or provide students and teachers all the resources they need for success without increasing state funding for public education. Comptroller Glenn Hegar has forecast an additional $9 billion in general revenue will be available for education and other needs, and he has projected a record $15 billion balance in the Rainy Day Fund, the state's savings account. TSTA believes this is enough money for legislators to increase state funding for public education and provide relief from school property taxes.

Teacher Pay

The Texas Commission on Public School Finance, which recently completed a study of school funding, didn't recommend an across-the-board teacher pay raise. Instead, it recommended that the Legislature encourage school districts to develop "merit pay" programs for selected teachers, which presumably would be largely based on student test scores. With average teacher pay in Texas lagging about $7,300 behind the national average, TSTA believes every teacher, not just a select handful, deserves a raise. About 40 percent of Texas teachers are forced to spread themselves thin with extra jobs during the school year to meet their families' financial needs, according to TSTA's most recent survey on teacher moonlighting and morale. TSTA opposes "incentive" or "merit-based" pay plans that single out only selected teachers for extra pay.

Educator Health Care

For years, the Legislature has refused to increase the state's contribution to school employee health insurance, even though the monthly contribution of $75 per employee hasn't been increased since 2002. With rising health care costs eroding the take-home pay of thousands of educators, TSTA will renew our case this session. We also will work with lawmakers to ease health insurance costs for retired educators. The retirees' TRS-Care system faces an estimated shortfall of $238 million, which TSTA believes should be addressed without raising retiree premiums or deductibles.

School Safety

TSTA will continue to oppose efforts to arm teachers as a solution to gun violence in schools. Instead, we will advocate for more state funding to increase the number of counselors and improve mental health services on campuses. We also will seek more funding to update security in school infrastructure and to hire more professionally trained campus law enforcement officers.

Vouchers

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's reelection means educators will be waging another battle against vouchers or some other device for diverting tax dollars to private schools. Whatever they are called - vouchers, education savings accounts, tax credit scholarships - they would undermine public schools. We believe opposition to vouchers remains strong in the House and was reinforced in the recent election cycle.

Charter Schools

Corporate-style charter chains, which are aggressively moving into Texas, are another effort at school privatization. These charters operate under privately selected governing boards in faraway cities, are often managed by for-profit companies and still get our tax dollars. Traditional public school districts are losing millions of dollars to them each year. The Legislature in 2017 enacted a law, Senate Bill 1882, which gave school districts new incentives for partnering with these charters. Under this law, districts that agree to partner with another entity - a charter, a non-profit organization, a governmental entity or a higher education institution - in the takeover of campuses that have repeatedly failed state accountability ratings can get extra funding from the state and relief from state sanctions. TSTA believes state Education Commissioner Mike Morath, in an eagerness to promote charters, is violating provisions in SB1882 that were designed to protect important educational standards for children and essential employment rights for educators.

Standardized Testing

STAAR testing continues to dominate the state's school "accountability" system, and, unless the law is changed, will largely determine what letter grades schools will receive under the new A-F grading system. Many parents and educators detest the student stress and the lost learning time inflicted by these standardized tests. TSTA will continue to demand that the Legislature abolish or drastically cut back on the STAAR program.

A-F Grading System

The new letter grading system for school districts and individual campuses is closely related to testing because grades will be determined by STAAR scores. Standardized test scores are an incomplete, misleading way to measure student success, and they unfairly discriminate against districts and schools with large numbers of low-income students. There are exceptions, but these students generally make the lowest grades on STAAR tests. Their parents can't afford the tutoring that many other students receive to prepare for the tests. Many low-income parents also work multiple jobs and don't have the time to help their children with homework or test prep. And some low-income parents, many of whom are not English speakers, lack the educational background to assist their children with school assignments. Many districts that received Ds and Fs when the first letter grades were handed out last summer had large enrollments of low-income students. The pattern is likely to be repeated when individual campuses are assigned their first letter grades later this year. TSTA will continue to urge the Legislature to repeal or modify the A-F law.

TRS Retirement

Because of changing economic conditions worldwide, Teacher Retirement System trustees lowered the expected rate of return on investments from 8 percent to 7.25 percent. The fund remains solvent, and no reductions in existing benefits are anticipated. But the Legislature will have to approve an additional $786 million, at least, in annual funding to enable an increase in retiree monthly pensions, which now average $2,060. The additional funding is necessary for the pension fund to be considered fully funded for the next 30 years, a requirement before pension payments can be raised. At present, teachers pay 7.7 percent of their salaries into the fund, the state pays 6.8 percent of total teacher payroll and school districts pay 1.5 percent. TSTA will urge the Legislature to make a significant increase in the state's share, which is the lowest percentage in the country. TSTA also will continue to fight proposals to convert TRS' defined-benefit pension fund into a riskier (for educators) defined-contribution plan, such as a 401(k).

Special Education

Following a public outcry over an arbitrary cap on special education enrollments imposed years ago by the Texas Education Agency, the Legislature in 2017 enacted a law prohibiting TEA from ever imposing such an enrollment limit again. The federal government ruled that the cap, which denied thousands of children the educational services to which they were entitled, violated federal law. TEA has been trying to address some special education issues, but the issue of inadequate funding still must be addressed by the Legislature.

Payroll Dues Deductions

For the second session in a row in 2017, TSTA and other public employee advocates killed legislation that would have ended the long-standing practice of deducting membership dues for professional organizations from most public employees' paychecks. We believe that this voluntary practice is the most secure and convenient way for teachers and other public workers to pay their dues in organizations that advocate for them and provide professional development opportunities. The automatic deductions cost taxpayers nothing. We expect to be fighting this same fight in 2019.

Community Schools

Our neighborhood public schools are the heart of education, and they will continue to educate the vast majority of Texas students. When a school is struggling, we should invest resources in that school and work with parents, educators and community leaders in that neighborhood to make sure we are making the right investments. The last thing a struggling school needs is "reform" that diverts tax dollars to private school students or hands the school over to outsiders who have no stake in the community or its children's success. TSTA supports the Community Schools model, which allows educators, parents and community nonprofits and businesses to develop effective programs for governing and supporting local schools, including a range of support that addresses problems that make it hard for a child to learn. When educators, parents and the community work together, we have something much better than reform. We have neighborhood schools that offer opportunity and a better future for our children.

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Increasing state funding for public education remains a top TSTA priority. Funding per student in average daily attendance (ADA) is about $2,300 less than the national average, ranking Texas 36th among the states and the District of Columbia, based on the latest National Education Association rankings.

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Issue 1:  In 2018, the U.S. Department of Education stayed a rule requiring school districts to review policies surrounding special education.  The rule required schools finding a "significant  disproportionality" in their handling of special education issues must allocate "15 percent of their federal special education funding to spend on remedies" (Samuels, 2019, p. 7).

Issue 2: School funding in Kansas faces an uncertain future due to lobbying tactics by Schools for Fair Funding. The lobbying group and several large school districts in Kansas previously supported a legislative bill increasing school funding, but now feel the dollars allocated fail to reach the amounts agreed upon. School funding in Kansas led to a state supreme court case and an agreement earlier this year on the language in the bill.  Schools for Fair Funding state the legislation falls short by "hundreds of millions" (Shorman, 2019, p. 2).

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The latest news about legal issues in education including articles, Commentaries, and special features.

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Issue 1: The news cycles in the past two weeks focused heavily on the recent indictments of celebrities and standardized testing proctors involved in admissions scandals nationwide.  One tool used by the man at the center of the scandal involved students using accommodations to cheat or bribed proctors altering answers to the standardized tests.  Advocates of students with disabilities needing accommodations during standardized testing feel public sentiment and scrutiny place these students at risk of losing accommodations due to the scandal (Camera, 2019).

Issue 2: In the first three months of 2019, almost 250 bills introduced in state legislatures address some form of school safety.  The majority focus on emergency drills, notification of parents, or devices installed on school campuses (i.e. metal detectors).  The next largest number of bills involves education, training, and hiring of school resource officers (Camera, States considering nearly 250 school safety bills already in 2019, 2019).

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Legal and Ethical Issue Further Investigated

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Legal and Ethical Issue Further Investigated

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School funding remains a current topic found at the state and federal legislative levels.  School funding affects my future as a teacher relating to raises for teachers, funding for curriculum, and school building and technology improvements.

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Assessing the Influence of No Child Left Behind on Gifted Education Funding in Texas: A Descriptive Study

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Assessing the Influence of No Child Left Behind on Gifted Education Funding in Texas: A Descriptive Study

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An article in the Journal of Advanced Academics, found through the Angelo State University Library, examined the funding levels of urban and rural school districts in Texas towards gifted education under the No Child Left Behind Act.  The study showed a disproportionate spending level affecting gifted classroom resources in rural areas and led the author to conclude schools taught towards the test to increase funding levels (Hodges, 2018).

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Angelo State University - Library Online Resources

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Unauthorized use is prohibited; Usage may be subject to security testing and monitoring; Misuse is subject to criminal prosecution; No expectation of privacy except as otherwise provided by applicable privacy laws.

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The resources found in The Education Trust's website show nationwide statistics supporting administrators, teachers, students, and parents on a variety of funding issues. The compilations of research appear in many forms including data sheets, graphs, and written form.

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Fierce advocates for the high academic achievement of all students - particularly those of color or living in poverty.

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Education Funding and My Professional Goals

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Education Funding and My Professional Goals

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My future goals as an educator depend on the continued funding of elementary schools.  News headlines have recently focused on teacher salaries and Texas' teacher salaries rank in the lower 25 of states.  Pending legislative actions to improve or revise funding of teacher salaries appear necessary towards retention of quality teachers.  Funding issues not only affect teachers, but the classroom environment.

School districts solely depending on federal and state funding face the task of eliminating or reducing services to students.   Schools in rural areas cut gifted education during the years 1996 to 2015 increasingly higher than urban schools.  Rural school districts’ funding allocations towards gifted education started with a smaller percentage in their annual budgets before 1996.  This led researchers to believe rural schools making gifted education budget decisions based on reduced funding occurred before the No Child Left Behind Act.  However, the cuts made from 1996 to 2015 after the implementation of the Act further reduced the resources available to teachers with gifted students (Hodges, 2018).

Teacher, school, and student-based associations lobby at state and federal levels regarding a multitude of funding issues.  Nationwide and state associations provide teachers and school districts information on current lobbying efforts. The associations also usually contain links or means to find other funding opportunities. Grants providing resources and funding specially designed for assisting in classrooms allow teachers and districts supplemental ways to alleviate funding cuts.