AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas Senate panel advanced a bill on Thursday that would give Texas teachers raises.
State Sen. Brandon Creighton of Conroe filed Senate Bill 26. The Senate Committee on Education K-16 voted unanimously to send the bill to the Senate floor for consideration.
“This is not the reason why teachers went into the profession, but they need support,” Creighton said. “They need an orderly classroom environment so that they can shine with their skills on behalf of their students, and they need some pay incentives that make life make sense because you have to pay the bills no matter how much purpose-driven life you have. Life is expensive.”
It would give teachers raises based on their experience and the school district’s size.
Teachers with three to four years of experience in rural districts with 5,000 students enrolled or fewer would get an extra $5,000 a year, and teachers in urban districts with that same amount of experience would get a $2,500 raise. Rural teachers with five or more years of experience would receive a $10,000 raise, and experienced urban teachers would receive an extra $5,500.
“We all agree that Texas teachers deserve real support and protections,” Creighton said. “They deserve to know that the people of Texas and state lawmakers value their work, not just in words, but in action.”
According to the Texas Education Agency, the average salary for a Texas teacher during the 2023-2024 school year was $62,474, which is thousands behind the national average. According to the National Education Association, the average salary for a teacher nationwide was $71,699.
“Texas has never done something this magnitude,” Sen. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound) said. “What it will mean for real people, for real families, these teachers. They’ll have the ability to provide for their families and not have to choose between fulfilling careers and serving children while at the same time taking care of their own expenses and providing for their families.”
SB 26 expands the Teacher Inventive Allotment (TIA) a merit-based pay program that gives bonuses to top-performing teachers based on academic growth. Under SB 26, 50% of teachers in a district can participate in the teacher incentive program, compared to the current cap of 33%.
When the TIA was created in 2019 in the incentive allotments, 300 teachers were in the program. Now, there are nearly 30,000 high-performing teachers, many of them earn more than $100,000 per year.
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) called the incentive program “the sign of a state that has recognized the value of teachers in the classroom.”
According to TEA, 49% of the 1,200 school districts in Texas participate in the program, including Southwest ISD, located Southwest of San Antonio.
“This isn’t just a bonus that we’re doing for our teachers. It’s something to strengthen the teacher capacity within the district,” Superintendent Dr. Jeanette Ball said. “It’s making sure that we keep our very best educators in the classroom.”
Ball said they are dealing with teachers who want to leave the classroom because they’re looking for ways to improve their family life and make more money, but TIA has allowed them to keep their best and highest quality teachers in the classroom.
“We want to maximize the teacher retention for our district and many other districts, and we’re able to do that by rewarding our teachers for the hard work they do in our classroom every day, especially for high-needs campuses,” Ball said.
The nearly $5 billion package allocates 80% to across-the-board teacher pay raises and 20% to expanding the Teacher Incentive allotment.
SB 26 would also provide teachers with free pre-K for their children and allow TEA to offer liability insurance that protects educators from legal action from “conduct that the teacher allegedly engaged in” during their duties.
Notably, the bill does not increase the basic allotment, the base amount of money school districts receive for each student. Instead, it gives districts money strictly for raises.
Some critics argue that increasing the basic allotment would give school districts more flexibility in raising salaries for teachers while also helping districts combat the rising costs of goods and services that schools face.
Districts participating in the teacher inventive allotment must not provide “across-the-board salary increases for instructional staff” except for inflation-related salary changes.
Some who testified expressed concern that the retention allotment only applied to classroom teachers, not nurses, counselors, and instructional aides, who play critical roles in schools.
“We urge you to include a sustainable and equitable pay raise that includes all educators who shape the learning environment,” Rachel Abell from the Texas PTA said.
Others argued that while rewarding excellent teachers is great, TIA is a limited program, and it could create tension between educators who are left out of the performance incentive-based pay structure.
“While the programs aim to reward top teachers, many feel it is not accessible enough and can create inequalities in how teachers are compensated,” Pamela McPeters with the Texas Classroom Teachers Association said.
The bill now goes to the Senate floor for full consideration. The House filed its version of a teacher pay bill on Thursday. It is part of House Bill 2, a $7.6 billion investment in public schools. It increases the basic allotment by $220 per student, and according to House Speaker Dustin Burrows, 40% is dedicated to teacher pay raises, including higher pay raises for rural teachers. It also expands the Teacher Incentive Allotment.
Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott has said he won’t sign any increase in public education funding unless lawmakers pass school choice.