Donna Howard

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Survey Responses

RESPONSES TO THE 2026 ATPE CANDIDATE SURVEY:

1. If elected, what are your top priorities for Texas public education?

Please describe any specific goals or legislative initiatives you would pursue to strengthen the state’s public education system.

Fully funding our public schools is my top priority; without adequate funding, districts will continue to struggle to provide students with a quality education. This is why, for the past several sessions I have introduced legislation that would increase the basic allotment and provide for an annual adjustment as determined by the comptroller applying the inflation rate to the allotment for the preceding school year. My second priority would be to restore autonomy in the education system. While I agree that parents must be fully informed of what their children are learning and should, without question, have final decision making authority, I believe recent legislation regarding parental consent has gone too far and must be revisited as it actually restricts the rights of some parents. It is critical we find a way to bring parents in on necessary decisions while not creating additional administrative burdens and barriers for educators. Finally, we must find a way to ensure students have access to mental health support at school. Recent legislation has made it increasingly difficult for school nurses and counselors to support students who reach out for help. Again, we must work to better balance a parent’s rights with a child’s healthcare needs.

2. Public Education Funding:

The 89th Legislature passed an $8 billion school funding bill, HB 2. However, despite years of unanswered “inflationary challenges, a large majority of that funding was earmarked to specific programs and did not supply districts with significant flexible funding, leaving the majority of Texas students in districts with deficit budgets and other significant funding challenges. Do you believe Texas public schools should receive additional funding? If so, how should the state pay for it, and should that funding be earmarked at the state level or provide districts with flexible dollars?

Despite the additional $8 billion, funding per pupil is still at pre-pandemic levels. Texas public schools absolutely need an increase in funding through the basic allotment. Indexing the BA to inflation, similar to what we have done for the small business franchise tax, would be the best solution. Doing so would provide districts with flexible funding to address their unique needs, account for the increasing costs associated with inflation, and reduce recapture. If we want to fully fund public schools while continuing to buy down property taxes, we will need to identify new funding streams to ensure there are no cuts to public education.

3. ESA Vouchers:

Education savings accounts (ESAs) redirect public funds to private or home schools. How do you believe Texas should fund public schools, traditional and charter, alongside ESA vouchers? How should ESA spending be held accountable to taxpayers?

I believe the state should always prioritize fully funding our district public school system above funding charter schools and the ESA program. Unfortunately, a greater proportion of state funds already goes to charter schools as the state covers the entire cost per pupil. Further, our investment in the ESA program should never take priority over funding for public or charter schools and funding for the ESA program should be held to the highest standard. Other states with similar programs have seen rampant fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer dollars. To avoid similar situations in Texas, the Legislature should require regular publicly available audits of how the funds are being spent. Furthermore, we should require the Comptroller to provide the public access to detailed information on students’ academic performance, their race, disability status and household income, and the schools they attended before entering the program. Texans have a right to know how taxpayer dollars are being spent and should have access to data that shows the outcomes of the program.

4. Teacher Recruitment and Retention:

Under HB 2, passed in 2025, all educators in core content courses (math, English, science, and social studies) must be certified by 2030. While this is a good start, more can and should be done to ensure high-quality teachers continue to enter the classroom. What are your suggestions to improve the quality of the new teacher pipeline?

Higher education affordability and the new teacher pipeline are issues that go hand in hand. High school students must believe that becoming a teacher is attainable, affordable, and is a profession that will allow them to meet their financial goals. The Legislature should increase funding for districts to expand their Grow-Your-Own (GYO) pathways. GYO programs not only incentivizes paraprofessionals who are already serving in schools to become teachers, but it also builds interest amongst high school students who are planning their future. In addition, we must continue to focus on making college affordable for every Texas student and ensure student loan repayment is not a barrier to becoming a teacher in Texas. One solution could be to create a loan repayment assistance program for teachers similar to the Nursing Loan Repayment.

5. Educator Pay and Benefits:

The 89th Legislature passed legislation creating a new mechanism to provide only classroom teachers with tiered raises based on early years of service and their district’s student enrollment. While the raises were significant, they did not apply to all campus educators, and the program created a significant negative funding stream at the district level due to unfunded increased costs for non-salary compensation tied to payroll, such as TRS retirement contributions. Do you support a state-funded across-the-board pay raise for all Texas educators? How would you ensure that compensation keeps pace with inflation and remains competitive with other professions?

According to the Teacher Vacancy Taskforce’s 2023 report, increasing and enhancing compensation packages for teachers is foundational to teacher retention and recruitment. The National Education Association estimates that the average salary of Texas educators – $62,474 – is about $9,300 less than the U.S. average. This is unacceptable. First, we must raise teacher salaries to be competitive with other states. We must also reinstate tying increased salaries to increases in the Basic Allotment and tie it to inflation.

6. Educator Health Care:

The high cost of health insurance for active and retired educators continues to reduce take-home pay, with educators shouldering the vast majority of their ever-increasing heath care costs. How would you address the affordability and sustainability of educator health care, particularly the TRS-ActiveCare and TRS-Care programs?

The Teacher Vacancy Task Force also identified rising healthcare costs as a significant barrier to teacher retention. In order to lower the teacher’s share of premiums, the state could increase our contribution percentage. Furthermore, we should allow school districts to choose from multiple health care plans to meet teacher needs. Beyond these solutions, the Legislature must address healthcare affordability overall as any changes made will inherently improve the system for everyone.

7. Retirement Security:

Do you believe the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) should remain a defined-benefit pension plan for all current and future members? If not, what is your plan to provide a secure retirement for Texas educators, particularly considering that state law has been set up such that most districts do not participate in Social Security?

We need to protect the defined-benefit pension plan for all current and future TRS members.

8. Accountability and Assessment Reform:

The Legislature has passed a new “through-year” multi-test model under HB 8. What role should standardized testing play in evaluating students, teachers, and schools? Should test results continue to determine A–F accountability ratings or teacher pay?

While measuring student performance is an important accountability measure, high stakes standardized tests create unnecessary stress for both students and teachers, and are also only one of many factors that should be considered when evaluating performance.

9. Parental Rights and Community Voice:

Recent legislative debates have focused on “parental rights” in education. In your view, what is the appropriate balance between accommodating the often conflicting wishes of individual parents while maintaining policies that reflect the broader community’s educational priorities and still providing consistency and an appropriate level of professional deference to educators?

While I do believe in a parents’ right to make decisions for their child, I do not believe this should become a barrier in the classroom or nurses’ office. We should make it easy for parents to know what is happening in the classroom and for them to communicate boundaries to their child’s teacher. We could do this by making consent forms available online through a parent portal and changing to an “opt-out” system. An “opt-out” system preserves a parent’s right to decide what their child participates in and allows educators the flexibility to move forward with classroom activities.

10. School Safety:

HB 3 (2023) imposed new school safety requirements but did not fully fund them. Although the 89th Legislature increased the School Safety Allotment, many districts continue to face substantial unfunded staffing and facility costs associated with school safety laws. How would you make schools safer and ensure the state provides adequate funding to meet safety mandates?

We need to fully fund the School Safety Allotment and ensure we increase the allotment to account for new changes and requirements in law. If given sufficient funding, most school districts would be able to purchase the resources they need to make their schools safe. However, hardening schools is only part of the solution. We must also pass stricter gun laws that include raising the age to purchase assault weapons and requiring background checks for handgun purchases at point of sale and/or for permit to purchase.

11. Curriculum and Local Control:

What do you believe is the proper role of the State Board of Education, the Texas Education Agency, and local school districts in setting curriculum standards and selecting instructional materials?

An ideal system would include the State Board of Education, the Texas Education Agency, and local districts working together to set curriculum standards and select instructional materials. The problem is both the outsized influence partisan politics has in the governance of each entity and how little say local districts have in the decision making process. Local districts should have more input in setting curriculum standards and should ultimately decide which instructional materials are most appropriate for their schools, guided by state standards set by the SBOE with TEA ensuring accountability.

12. Educator Rights and Professional Associations:

State law allows educators and other public employees to voluntarily join professional associations such as ATPE and have membership dues deducted from their paychecks at no cost to taxpayers. Do you support or oppose allowing public employees to continue exercising this right? Why or why not?

I support allowing public employees to voluntarily join professional associations and deduct dues from their paychecks. These organizations enhance the teacher workforce by providing teachers with professional development resources and advocating on their behalf during legislative sessions. If a teacher chooses to use a portion of their check to pay for this, then they should be allowed to do so.

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Did not respond to the 2024, 2022, 2020, or 2018 ATPE Candidate Survey.