Texas AFT Legislative Hotline--Friday, October 23, 2009

* Texas AFT Keeps Up Pressure on Federal Rules on Certification Exams for Elementary Teachers
* Texas AFT Member Wins Milken Prize for Teaching Excellence
 
Texas AFT Keeps Up Pressure on U.S. Education Department:  Texas AFT President Linda Bridges today called on the U.S. Department of Education to show some common sense in its interpretation of rules for certification exams required of teachers in elementary schools.  In a letter addressed to Thelma Melendez de Santa Ana, Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, Bridges wrote:
 
"Texas AFT represents more than 63,000 employees in public and higher education across our state. We have learned from communications by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and related media reports that the U.S. Department of Education is considering whether Texas' current policy for determining elementary-school teachers' highly qualified status complies with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Specifically, it appears that Department personnel have suggested TEA has erred in requiring that elementary-school teachers new to the profession who are assigned to teach a single subject in a departmentalized setting must pass a state certification exam in the subject they teach, not a generalist exam.

"Texas AFT takes the view that TEA's interpretation is sound educational policy and accords with the intent of ESEA and, particularly, its 2002 'No Child Left Behind Act reauthorization. The Department should allow TEA's interpretation to stand, with no new requirement for the teachers in question to take the generalist exam.

"TEA has followed a common-sense approach. Under that approach, elementary teachers in non-departmentalized instruction--one teacher providing instruction for all subjects--have been appropriately required to pass a generalist certification exam. Elementary teachers in departmentalized instruction--a teacher providing instruction in only one course area, e.g., math or social studies--have been appropriately required to pass the certification exam for their subject matter. The Department ratified this interpretation de facto when its March 2006 monitoring report for 'Highly Qualified Teachers and Improving Teacher Quality State Grants' noted that Texas elementary-school teacher qualification policy 'met requirements.'

"Should the Department insist that new teachers take the generalist exam, Texas AFT will request that the requirement should apply only prospectively, to new teachers hired after the new requirement is formally imposed, not to teachers hired for the 2009-2010 school year and already in the classroom."

Texas AFT Member Wins Milken Teaching Award:  Maricruz Aguayo-Tabor, a member of our Education Austin affiliate in Austin ISD, has won the Milken Educator Award for teaching excellence. Aguayo-Tabor is one of only 50 educators thus honored nationwide this year. She teaches and heads up the social-studies department at Austin ISD's Liberal Arts and Sciences Academy. Her award carries with it a grant of $25,000.