Improving Our Children’s Schools
The opportunity for every child to receive a quality public education from a qualified teacher in a safe environment is the key to our future.
This package of bills will help improve our schools by making textbooks more affordable, eradicating gang activity from our school yards, increasing support services to students with disabilities, fixing the changes made to the school finance system, changing the ratios of students taught by new or uncertified teachers, providing for fairer testing of our students, helping solve the drop-out crisis, improving the software system used to manage public and charter schools and making teachers’ salaries more competitive. 
Texas teachers are paid, on average, $4,000 a year less than the national average. HB 1625 raises teacher salaries to the national average.
ALSO SEE: Taxes & Budget Policy
Lowers the class-size limit for pre-kindergarten classes to twenty-two students.
Eliminates the high stakes nature of standardized testing for elementary, middle, and high school students by allowing students to advance if they pass other specified student performance measures, should they not meet standards on the TAKS test.
Ensures safety at our children's schools by enacting tougher rules against bullying in classrooms and creating safe school units within the Department of Public Safety to provide information concerning juvenile delinquency and juvenile substance abuse.
Requires that all new school buses have seat belts for students.
Encourages libraries to offer access to computers with high-speed Internet connections.
Allows for free breakfast and/or lunch for all students in schools where at least sixty percent of the students at the school qualify for the free breakfast and lunch programs.
Requires school boards to adopt policies and procedures to prevent various forms of harassment in public schools.
Guarantees that no public school administrator may deny educators the right to a duty-free lunch, personal leave, and classroom planning and preparatory time.
ALSO SEE: Health & Human Services
Securing Teacher Retirement
Texas' contribution to the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) has not increased since 1996. In order to secure the benefits promised to both retired and current teachers who are paid far less than the value of their important work, several House Democrats have filed bills to insure the solvency of TRS and adjust benefits to keep up with inflation and other costs that impact retired teachers. Their bills are listed below.
From pre-kindergarten to college, educational opportunity makes democracy work by providing the next generation with the skills needed to work together to make their world better.