The End of DACA -- What It Means for Educators and Students

“We won’t give up on the children affected by the decision to end the DACA program,” said TEA President Barbara Gray. “We have bipartisan agreement in Tennessee that these children are now part of our communities. Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R-Chattanooga) and Rep. Mark White (R-Memphis) support in-state tuition for the Dreamers. As educators, we don’t want any of our students to live in fear.”

Being part of NEA means being part of a family—a huge and caring family—that reaches out to each other when disaster strikes. 

Since Hurricane Harvey made landfall on August 25th, Houston, Rockport, and other communities (totaling 50 counties) have been swamped by the most extreme rain event in U.S. history. 

Texans are rising to the tremendous challenge, helping their friends, neighbors, and even complete strangers find shelter and safety. This is the American spirit at its best, when we summon unity and compassion to get through a crisis as one. 

Wesley Roberts, astronomy teacher at Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville, is looking forward to witnessing the historic eclipse of 2017 on the school lawn on Monday. 

“August 21 is the most in-your-face science event of the 21st century,” Roberts said. “It’s rare for a solar eclipse to cover the whole continent. While a partial solar eclipse happens every 18 months, it occurs in totality every 300 years or so. Nashville, Clarksville and the Tennessee portion of the Great Smoky Mountains are in the path of totality. Now that’s something to get excited about!”

Association members are eligible for thousands in grants!

Teachers are constantly dipping into their own pockets to fund classroom projects that  fall outside of the school budget, but there are other ways to get these projects funded. NEA, TEA and our partner organizations offer a number of grant opportunities exclusively to association members. 

As delays in getting scores and data from TNReady for the 16-17 schoolyear continue, the state’s testing vendor, Minnesota-based Questar, met with TEA officials to provide an update on the status, the challenges the company had in its first year, and what they are working on going forward.  

Proposed rule changes would jeopardize teacher licenses, limit local control over teacher discipline

TEA has objected to massive changes in the teacher licensure rules proposed by the State Board of Education, and halted an attempt to quickly pass them in a key legislative committee. 

Now the state board is trying to circumvent the law on passing rules by labeling them “emergency” and stating that  students’ safety is at stake. 
The idea that students were at-risk under current rules is a sham.   

State Board votes to apply teacher raise to State Minimum Salary Schedule,
ensuring all teachers will receive a meaningful increase

TEA made the 2017 session about getting state raise funds into teacher paychecks. We testified in committees, lobbied legislators and leaders, and pushed across the state for change. 

Legislative leaders are responding. On the last session day, House Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville) and House Finance Ways and Means Chairman Charles Sargent (R-Franklin) sent a letter to Commissioner Candice McQueen and the State Board of Education, outlining the case to drive state funds into teacher salaries. 

Private school voucher bills have become synonymous with the Tennessee General Assembly. 

For five straight years, bills to strip public funding from our local public schools to fund private school tuition have been filed. For five straight years, TEA and other public school advocates have fought back and won.

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed into law in late 2015. The new federal education law replaces No Child Left Behind and gives states flexibility around issues like testing and accountability. Tennessee has already submitted its required ESSA plan to the US Department of Education for review. Just last week, the legislature passed HB 308, the legislative counterpart to the ESSA plan. While there are some positive elements, the plan also includes some key missed opportunities. 

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