House Appropriations Subcommittee declines to fund teacher working conditions survey

The Article III Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee met March 12 for its final meeting of the legislative session. 

HB 1, the General Appropriations Act, is the longest bill of the session and is divided into articles on different subjects to better organize it; Article III concerns state funding to education. The meeting's purpose was to take action on over 100 riders submitted by members of the House for inclusion in this part of the budget. 

Many of the items are contingent on other pieces of legislation passing, so they were unceremoniously placed on another part of the budget dedicated to those kinds of riders, while others were rejected outright due to hefty price tags.

At TCTA's suggestion, Rep. Lauren Ashley Simmons (D-Houston) requested that the state fund a biennial survey of teacher working conditions, commonly referred to as the TELL survey. In 2013, the survey was established to regularly check the pulse of working conditions in public schools, but it was only funded one time. Since then, the requirement for the survey has remained in Texas Education Code, but without an appropriation, the survey won't be conducted.

Subcommittee Chairman Stan Kitzman (R-Bellville) declined to adopt the rider, citing that TEA informed him of difficulties in administering the survey the first time around, and that they are working on a better way to administer it in the future. TCTA makes a similar suggestion every session, and TEA offers a similar response each time in return.

Current information about teacher working conditions is vital to inform efforts to recruit and retain teachers. TCTA will continue to push for ongoing funding of the TELL survey to provide the most up-to-date information to lawmakers.