Urge Your State Rep to Vote “NO” on HB 400, Unless the Phillips Alternative is Adopted

Urge Your State Rep to Vote “NO” on HB 400, Unless the Phillips Alternative is Adopted:  Back on the Texas House agenda for Friday is House Bill 400, the so-called “flexibility” plan to provide “mandate relief” at the expense of students and teachers. Please call and tell your State Rep. to Vote "No" on HB 400. We'll automatically connect you to your state representative's office and provide you with talking points to nix this plan. You can also send your rep. an online letter here.


HB 400 permanently eliminates the 22-to-1 cap on the size of K-4 classrooms, by changing the standard to a district-wide average, which can easily be gamed to increase class sizes. Both this average and a new 25-to-1 cap for individual classrooms also would be subject to waiver. The bill also wipes out special requirements of smaller class sizes for students at risk of failing standardized state tests.

HB 400 permanently eliminates the state minimum salary schedule for teachers, counselors, nurses, and librarians, replacing salary floors with a mandate to districts to institute test-driven “performance pay.”

HB 400 kills teachers’ contract safeguards. It takes away the right to an independent hearing before an impartial hearing examiner for a teacher faced with a mid-contract termination. It deprives term-contract teachers of timely notice of proposed non-renewal, shifting the notice date to the last day of instruction, so teachers must wait five extra, anxious weeks before they know if they are employed for the coming year.  Teachers on continuing contracts meanwhile lose one of the main benefits of their contracts: seniority protection in case of layoffs. This is an engraved invitation to target veteran teachers with the highest salaries for layoffs.

A temporary revenue crisis is no excuse for permanent repeal of all these educational quality standards and employee safeguards. Urge your state representative to block HB 400 unless it is amended by the Phillips alternative, which would institute limited, short-term measures like emergency class-size waivers based on undue financial hardship and temporary salary adjustments as a substitute for layoffs.