Let’s start voting like it. Let’s VOTE FOR our CLASSROOMS . Let’s VOTE FOR our LIBRARIES! Let’s VOTE FOR our STUDENTS. Let’s vote, unapologetically, for ourselves!

In Solidarity,
A Fellow Teacher-Librarian

You are a dedicated professional that are highly degreed. You deserve a government that respects that dedication and education with action, not undermines it with rhetoric and defunding. You are not a pawn in a political game; you are the backbone of our communities and our democracy.

Texas education will not be saved by the very people who are currently taking a wrecking ball to it.

Our students are counting on us. Their teachers and schools need us to have the resources, the support, and the professional autonomy to do the job. This the great state of Texas! They need and deserve a robust, well-funded, and resilient public school system.

The promise of a tax cut or a single-issue stance cannot outweigh the daily reality of a profession (and a system) being bled dry. You cannot serve a student with a tax cut. You cannot buy new books, hire teaching assistants, or repair schools with tax cuts and no plan to fund schools.

And so, I plead with you…STOP VOTING AGAINST YOUR OWN INTERESTS.

When you vote for Governor, ask yourself one simple question: "Has this party, has this governor, made my job easier or harder? Have they empowered me to be a better educator, or have they tied my hands and starved my classroom?"

This is not a partisan observation; it is a FACTUAL record.

These are not policies that support educators. They are policies designed to weaken, undercut, and ultimately replace the public education system we have sworn to uphold.

* Failed us on the most basic level, refusing to address crippling teacher shortages with meaningful, long-term solutions like competitive pay and restored retirement benefits, instead offering empty praise and temporary fixes.

* Attacked our professionalism, legislating what we can teach, what books we can buy, and how we can discuss the complex truths of our history, all while dismissing our expertise and judgment.

* Systematically defunded our schools, with their voucher schemes that will siphon millions of public tax dollars away from our already-strained public classrooms and into unaccountable private institutions.

Another Greg Abbott term, and a political party that follows his lead that has not been an ally to public education, in fact, they have become its most powerful dismantlers, will only cause more damage under Abbott’s leadership:

We feel it in our souls as we watch the respect for our profession erode in the public eye, while the demands upon us multiply.

In this moment of crisis, we must look with clear eyes at the forces that are actively making this situation worse.

Look at the record, at the actions, not the words.

Dear fellow educators,

We are in the fight of our professional lives. We see it every day: the crumbling infrastructure, the overflowing classes, the need for supplies we pay for out of pocket, the gaps in resources for our vulnerable, the cut/splitting of staff to do the job of two or more.

Our schools don’t need less funding. They need leaders who INVEST in teachers, students, libraries, educational programs and opportunities…NOT DISMANTLE THEM.

It’ll be his 4th term. How’s it going for educators under his leadership? Another Abbott term doesn’t just mean tax cuts. It means gutting the foundation of public education in Texas.

Love your school libraries?
Love your Fine Arts programs?
Love having full time teachers and programs at your child’s school?
HERE’S YOUR CHANCE TO SHOW YOU WANT THAT WITH YOUR VOTE.

Without plans for funding from the state districts will be pressured to make more cuts. More constrained budgets or fewer options for local tax increases will limit discretionary funding for programs and pay.

FYI there are NO CLEAR replacement revenue mechanisms outlined in his announcement. At the very least, before giving him our vote LET’S ASK WHERE DISTRICTS SHOULD GET FUNDING FROM.

The bulk of public K-12 funding in Texas relies (in large part) on local property taxes plus state funds. If school-district property taxes for homeowners were eliminated, that revenue would need to be replaced either by increased state funding or by shifting burden elsewhere.