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Capitol Comment
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Lessons in nonpartisan advocacy from ATPE
by Jennifer Canaday, ATPE Governmental Relations manager
ATPE’s advocacy during election years is sometimes misunderstood. It’s not easy being nonpartisan and still trying to effect positive change in the political arena. ATPE manages by combining professional lobbying with our members’ grassroots involvement and fundraising to support those who can advance our cause. Although ATPE won’t endorse candidates or tell you how to vote, we do make ATPE Political Action Committee (ATPE-PAC) contributions on a nonpartisan basis to candidates and officeholders who demonstrate support for public education. Individual educators simply cannot compete with deep-pocketed donors, but through ATPE-PAC we can pool our resources in a strategic manner to promote ATPE’s philosophies.
Market outlook
If you view our ATPE-PAC contributions as an investment, we’ve had a good return. We gave to legislators who have helped us pass teacher pay raises, protect contract rights and fend off private school vouchers. Some have voted 100 percent of the time in support of ATPE priorities. But sometimes markets crash in spite of wise investments, and that’s what happened when many of public education’s strongest supporters—both Republicans and Democrats—were voted out of office this year.
With a little luck and hard work, new legislators will side with educators, and we’ll invest in them, too. Considering the number of newly elected legislators who have said they favor vouchers, eliminating the 22:1 class-size limit, lowering certification standards and turning the Teacher Retirement System into a 401(k) plan, we have our work cut out for us. But ATPE members are up to the challenge of welcoming these legislators and explaining the significance of things such as the minimum salary schedule and contract rights, which benefit educators and school districts alike. We have an opportunity to enlighten those who might not fully appreciate the consequences of directing state money to private school voucher schemes that bear no accountability for student success. You can educate them. It’s what you do best!
With a $25 billion budget deficit, tough times are ahead. Public education will inevitably be cut this session. Will legislators cut pet projects with questionable efficacy, such as performance pay plans, or will they yield to complaints about “unfunded mandates” and slash research-based initiatives that help kids learn? If you care, then it’s time to remind decision makers that the work you do for children every day is of the utmost importance.
That’s precisely why ATPE took on the mantle of teacher quality. We recently released our teacher quality study, and some school officials are unhappy about how their campuses fared on the teacher quality indexes that Dr. Ed Fuller, a special research associate at the University of Texas at Austin, developed. Using state data, he looked at the number of teachers assigned out of field, teacher turnover rates and the number of novice teachers—all factors tied to student achievement. The objective was not to cast blame or imply that one school’s teachers were “better” than another’s; the purpose was to underscore the fact that disadvantaged students are too often assigned to the least-experienced teachers. By highlighting this, we hope to influence legislation that will incorporate teacher quality into the accountability system and prioritize resources for educator recruitment and retention. I hope this is an objective that transcends party lines.
Remembering a true friend
If ever there were a model for placing the good of our state above party affiliation, it was Rep. Edmund Kuempel (R–Seguin). He easily won re-election in November but lost the battle for his life two days later. ATPE honored him with a Freedom to Teach Award in 2006 after he courageously fought proposals that would have hurt public education and steadfastly opposed vouchers and private takeover of public schools. Kuempel understood the responsibility placed on public school educators; that’s why he supported ATPE’s work to protect their livelihood and give them the tools they need to prepare Texas’ children for greatness. Let’s honor his memory by continuing those bipartisan efforts.
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