Take action! Become a member!
Greetings from the Mexican American School Board Association (MASBA) of Texas. We write this letter to invite you to join or renew your membership with our organization and also to attend our annual conferences.
MASBA is just another tool in our battle to ensure all Texas children get an equitable education. Our connections at the grassroots levels make us a viable alternative to push for legislation and programs that can impact our children statewide. Together, everything is possible. “Juntos, todo se puede.”
Please remember that MASBA is composed of board members from throughout the state of Texas and has a focus in getting quality and equitable education to ALL the children of our state. Please fill out the membership and fax or mail to our offices at addresses and numbers listed on this correspondence.
MASBA is a 501c3 non-profit organization, established in the 1970s. Its mission is to advocate top quality public education for ALL the children of Texas. The organization was founded in 1970 by José A. Cárdenas, superintendent of the Edgewood Independent School District in San Antonio.
What can MASBA do for you and your school board? First, MASBA is an authorized training partner with the Texas Education Agency and can provide board member training in a variety of subjects to your school board members at little or no charge. We do this to be able to assure that board members from all school district, regardless of size or resources, get the training they need. Second, we offer a first-class conference every year at which board members can gain board credit training hours.
Membership in the organization allows you to attend the conference at no charge. Third, we are part of Texas Latino Coalition, an organization which formed to push forth education issues which directly affect the Mexican American children of Texas. Fourth, the organization allows the individual board member to express his/her ideas in a forum separate from the local board or TASB.
MASBA is not an organization with a single focus. We have issues which we want to push forward and we network with state legislators and key educators throughout Texas to assure that these issues are brought forth and resolved in an equitable and fair manner.
What are MASBA’s goals and objectives? They are simple and direct:
- To work with the state legislature and state leadership to implement our Tejano History Project into the textbooks used in Texas to ensure that true history of Texas be provided to our children,
- Fair funding – all public schools must have equitable funding and we will oppose any legislation that does not achieve this,
- Teaching quality – all teachers must be prepared to ensure all students, including diverse and special needs students, are properly educated,
- Continue to support the 10 percent plan,
- Work to improve “School Holding Power” so that schools will graduate all students with a high school diploma certified to make them work or college ready,
- Continue to ask for “K-16 Initiatives” such as Early Childhood programs, Early College and College Connection by informing membership of the benefits of these programs and
- To stand up for the rights for ALL the children of Texas.
Funds to support MASBA’s activities have come from the Intercultural Development Research Association, affiliated with the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the National Education Task Force de la Raza, and other groups. Numerous MASBA members are prominent Mexican Americans in the state. MASBA has meetings during the TASB/TASA Fall Conference and Summer Leadership Institute and has a general membership meeting during the organization’s yearly conference.
If you feel MASBA can provide you opportunities you cannot find elsewhere, please join us. Call if you have questions.