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Houston United for Public Schools Commercial

It takes a team of teachers, aides, social workers, bus drivers and support staff to make a great school for our students. Yet many in Austin are only talking about funding a pay raise for full-time classroom teachers. HFT members believe that all teachers and school support personnel deserve a pay raise. It's not too late to make our voices heard and win a promise of money for pay raises for all school employees. But we need to act today! Please join us in our efforts by sending this letter to your state representative encouraging them to support HB3 and to support pay raises for all school staff.

It takes a team of teachers, aides, social workers, bus drivers and support staff to make a great school for our students. Yet many in Austin are only talking about funding a pay raise for full-time classroom teachers. HFT members believe that all teachers and school support personnel deserve a pay raise. It's not too late to make our voices heard and win a promise of money for pay raises for all school employees. But we need to act today! Please join us in our efforts by sending this letter to your state representative encouraging them to support HB3 and to support pay raises for all school staff.

Texas AFT Convention Delegate Nominations

Dear Union Colleague,

Nominations for delegates to the 2019 Texas AFT Summer Convention are open Friday, April 12 - Monday, April 22 at 5 p.m. The convention will be held here in Houston, and delegates will be representing the membership of NEHOUAFT.

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You Are Needed on March 11. Action Matters!

   

Northeast Houston AFT and Texas AFT invite all educators, support professionals, and community partners to join us in Austin on the first Monday of spring break, March 11, for the 2019 Texas AFT March to the Capitol. It is our turn to educate the legislature about our priorities and tell them to do what’s right.

Register now to join us in Austin on March 11. The Union will provide round-trip transportation, and all participants will receive a legislative orientation and lunch on the Capitol grounds. Thousands of public school employees and supporters will be mobilized for this event to rally for our public schools. You do not have to be a member of AFT to participate. 

Email sbelow@nehouaft.org to reserve your seat on the bus!
 

  • Event details, including the finalized schedule, will be sent via email to the contact email provided.
  • Estimated leave time on March 11 is 6:30 a.m., with a return by 7:00 p.m 
  •  All guests/children must be registered separately. Children are recommended to be at least 5-years or older to attend. There is no childcare service provided at this event.
  • More details to come!

1 Million Free Books Distributed by AFT

What does the PISA report tell us about U.S. education?

What unions do

In AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest New York Times  column, she describes what it is exactly that unions do. Though unions are the most popular they have been in decades, anti-union sentiment still thrives in red states and across the nation. “Several years ago, The Atlantic ran a story whose headline made even me, a labor leader, scratch my head: ‘Union Membership: Very Sexy,’” Weingarten writes in the column. “The gist was that higher wages, health benefits and job security—all associated with union membership—boost one’s chances of getting married. Belonging to a union doesn’t actually guarantee happily ever after, but it does help working people have a better life in the here and now.” Click through to read the full column.

A torrent of censorship

Nearly 250 years since our country’s founding, some Americans are still attempting to restrict others’ basic freedoms. In Florida and elsewhere, censoring books is part of larger efforts to exert greater control over and undermine education.

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Voting for democracy and a better life

In the leadup to the midterm elections, pundits predicted a red wave, even a tsunami, based on polls, historical precedent, and steep gas and grocery prices. But I had my doubts. I spent the weeks before the elections talking to voters and traveling on the AFT Votes bus, rolling through a dozen states with more than 50 stops. In a year when kitchen table issues, democracy and our freedoms were on the ballot, many people told me that the elections came down to a choice between, on the one side, election deniers and extremists stoking fear, and on the other, problem-solvers working to help the country move forward. Many races were close, but Americans turned the tide from a red wave to a swell of support for progress and problem-solvers. Read the full column here.

Sharing more pathways to student debt relief

As the landscape of student debt shifts, and more and more opportunities allow borrowers to have their debt relieved, the AFT is using every avenue to ensure that the word is out. In affiliate meetings, telephone town halls, media coverage and social media, the union is spreading the news, and at a student debt clinic at AFT headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 31, AFT President Randi Weingarten vowed to reach as many people as possible with information that could save them tens—and sometimes hundreds—of thousands of dollars.

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Celebrating student loan relief

“It was like waking up and learning you won the lottery.” That’s just one of the comments flooding the AFT offices from members who are elated to be free of student debt at last. After relentless advocacy, including an AFT lawsuit against former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that was so broken is finally doing what it is supposed to do: delivering relief from student debt for thousands of borrowers. So far, $6.2 billion in student debt has been forgiven for 100,000 public service workers like teachers, nurses and professors.

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