Innovative Teachers of Texas offers alternative policy voice for educators

Innovative Teachers of Texas (ITT) offers a choice, not an echo, for Texas educators.

While other teachers organizations have existed for far longer, the women who founded ITT in 2019 said they created it to give Texas teachers an option for professional representation that provides excellent benefits and services without funding a political agenda that differs from their own.

“Innovative Teachers of Texas (ITT) promotes professionalism and excellence in the classroom amongst all educators and asks its members to provide the highest quality of education possible to their students,” ITT Executive Director Jennifer Winter told Education Daily Wire. “As a non-union alternative, ITT offers choice to educators, promotes decreased union influence, and provides better opportunity for achieving meaningful improvements in K-12 education while empowering educators.”

Before she helped found ITT, she was an educator for more than a decade, working in Washington state and California as a Spanish instructor.

In addition to providing training and a sounding board on education issues, ITT can empower teachers with traditional and conservative views to have a stronger voice in politics and government, Winter said.

“ITT will continue to be focused on supporting the individual teacher,” she said. “Our future growth includes growing the organization to include fireside chats where teachers can meet with their state representatives and state senators in an intimate setting where conversation can flow smoothly and intellectually satisfy professional educators. Through these conversations, teachers will have their voices heard and appropriate policy can be created and implemented.”

“Our unique value is that we support teachers as individuals and give them an alternative voice to connect with other professionals and with policy leaders directly,” she said. “ We inspire educators to be confident in their own knowledge and intuition in caring and teaching their students. We don’t preach or tell teachers what to think or how to vote but instead provide information that will allow them to make their own choices, since they are professional practitioners and should be trusted to make their choices through their careful research.”

Winter said ITT's goal is to serve as “an incubator for establishing new state chapters” and as a clearinghouse for best practices for state chapters to help promote their organizations among the nation’s educators. She said it also plans to explore the concept of allowing and supporting educators as entrepreneurs.

“ITT will consist of forward-thinking professionals who want policies in place that allow, and encourage, excellence in education and professionalism in the classroom,” Winter said.

ITT provides an option with two existing organizations.

The Texas State Teachers Association (TSTA) is affiliated with the National Education Association.

“We don’t see it as our main competitor primarily because it is a union and we are not,” Winter said. “Another reason we do not see the NEA as a main competitor of ours is because many teachers already know that the NEA is very far left and are looking for something a little different. Innovative Teachers of Texas is looking to bring on board those teachers who know that they don’t want to be a part of the NEA.”

The Association of Texas Professional Educators (ATPE) is the largest teachers’ organization in the state, with 111,000 members.

Its annual dues are $175.00 for members and $90.00 for an associate member. A first-time member is charged $110.00. A $10 credit can be earned for every referral who becomes a member.

“They started out to be the main competitor of NEA but then eventually became liberal like the NEA,” Winter said. “Many teachers who do not want to be a part of the NEA become members of ATPE.”

ITT’s membership dues cost $120, which includes identity theft protection. As of July 1, it will offer up to $3 million in professional liability insurance as well.

For more information, or to join, go to http://www.ittexas.org/join-us.