(The Texas Tribune) The Texas Senate approved priority school funding legislation Wednesday that would provide pay raises to teachers based on years of experience, expand a state program that offers raises to instructors based on student performance and allow educators to enroll their children in pre-K free of charge.
Senate Bill 26, authored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, passed unanimously. The bill now goes to the House for further consideration. The House filed its own school funding bill last week, which lawmakers in that chamber will likely take up in the coming weeks.
“This bill is a promise,” Creighton said just before the vote on SB 26, “one that tells every teacher in Texas that we have their back.”
Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle expressed strong support for the Senate bill during the floor discussion Wednesday. Creighton sought to make the case that his bill prioritizes teachers and support staff — even though the measure does not increase schools’ base funding.
Increasing that stream of funding could offer school districts flexibility in raising salaries for not just teachers but also employees who support them outside of the classroom — like bus drivers, librarians and nurses. It could also help schools combat the rising costs of goods and services they rely on.
But the Senate this session does not appear likely to prioritize adding to that pot of money, known as the basic allotment, which has not gone up since 2019 despite inflation. School districts have said the state’s reluctance to increase that funding has exacerbated the struggles they currently face — like budget deficits, campus closures and teacher shortages.
Creighton said Wednesday that he believes narrowly focusing on teacher pay in the Senate proposal will allow school districts to use more of their base funding — $6,160 for each student — for support staff and not have to worry as much about using those funds for teacher raises.
The bill’s passage in the Senate comes as Texas educators have left the teaching profession in droves and the state has increased its reliance on instructors who lack formal classroom training. Gov. Greg Abbott declared teacher pay an “emergency item” earlier this month, allowing lawmakers to fast-track any proposals on the topic during the legislative session that ends June 2.
The initial version of SB 26 would establish yearly pay raises for teachers with at least three years of experience, with additional increases for instructors who teach for at least five years.
Teachers in smaller school districts would receive bigger raises. Those with 3-4 years of experience in school districts with 5,000 students or less would receive a $5,000 raise, while those with five or more years of teaching on their resume would earn $10,000. Educators with 3-4 of experience in school districts with more than 5,000 students would earn a $2,500 raise, while those with five or more years of experience would receive $5,500, according to the bill.
The legislation would also expand the Teacher Incentive Allotment, a state program that allows eligible school districts to award bonuses to instructors based on their students’ academic growth. It would also allow districts to implement a similar evaluation system for school principals and assistant principals.
More than 25,000 teachers — across almost 500 school districts — participated in the program last school year. Texas has more than 384,000 teachers across more than 1,200 districts. School districts that do not participate in the program would not receive the additional funding for teacher pay.
During a public hearing on the bill last week, the Senate’s education committee heard from a parade of public speakers largely in support of the measure. A handful of speakers testified they wished the proposal included non-classroom school workers like nurses and aids.
“We want to maximize the teacher retention for our district and for many other districts, and we’re able to do that by rewarding our teachers for the hard work that they do in our classrooms,” Southwest ISD Superintendent Jeanette Ball said ahead of the vote.
That school system has implemented the incentive program.
“Our teachers are working together to support each other, to learn more, to enhance what they do in the classroom,” she said.
The new bill proposal would allow up to 50% of teachers at a school district to participate in the teacher incentive program compared to the current cap of 33%.
SB 26 would also add the children of public school teachers to the list of kids who qualify for free pre-K services from the state, which many Texas elementary schools already offer. And it would allow the Texas Education Agency to offer liability insurance that protects educators from legal action stemming from “conduct that the teacher allegedly engaged in” throughout the course of their duties. Many of the state’s teacher organizations currently offer liability insurance for those members.
The state’s average teacher salary rests at $60,716, which ranks 30th in the nation, according to the National Education Association, an organization tracking educator pay across the U.S.
For at least one of the state’s teacher advocacy organizations, the Senate bill does not go far enough in helping improve teacher salaries for all Texas educators.
“Let’s quit talking about pulling out a select few teachers for extra pay,” Texas State Teachers Association spokesperson Clay Robison told The Texas Tribune. “Because every student deserves a well-paid teacher, and every teacher deserves to be well paid.”
Monty Exter, governmental relations director for the Association of Texas Professional Educators, called the money designated for experienced teachers “impressive.” But if lawmakers in the future decided not to set funds aside for those teachers in the budget, Exter said, then school districts would likely have to cover the costs. That could lead to districts eventually clawing back raises from instructors or adopting budget deficits, he said.
Exter also said teachers may not support the state attempting to encourage districts to adopt a merit-based pay evaluation system for all educators. The bill notes that if a school district participates in the expanded teacher incentive program, they must not provide “across-the-board salary increases for instructional staff” except for salary changes related to inflation.
Abbott said during his State of the State address that he wanted to increase Texas teachers’ average salary to an “all-time high” and put more teachers on a pathway to a six-figure income through the Teacher Incentive Allotment. The House and Senate have both proposed allocating roughly $5 billion in new funds to public schools. Senate leadership has said it wants to use most of that funding to boost the teacher incentive program and increase teacher pay.
The lack of a significant raise to school districts’ base amount of funding per student since 2019 has exacerbated the challenges public schools currently face, according to public education advocates. Those challenges include budget deficits, program cuts, campus closures and teacher shortages. During the last legislative session, schools missed out on a $7 billion funding boost, which would have included an increase to schools’ base funding, after lawmakers declined to pass a bill establishing a program that would have allowed families to use taxpayer dollars to fund their children’s private education.
Abbott had promised that he would not sign a bill increasing public education funding without the passage of that program — widely known as school vouchers or education savings accounts — his top legislative priority in recent years. The Senate has already passed its priority school voucher proposal this year, and the legislation now awaits a vote in the House. In response to questions from Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, on Wednesday, Creighton committed to keeping school funding legislation and the state’s voucher proposals separate this session.
The House proposed its own school voucher legislation last week, which top lawmakers there say they have the support to pass. That chamber has also filed its own priority school funding bill, which mirrors the Senate measure in some respects — like heavily investing in the state’s teacher incentive program — while detouring in other areas.
Notably, the House wants to increase schools’ base funding by $220 per student, a number significantly short of what public schools say they need. To account for inflation, schools need at least $1,000 more per student than what the basic allotment currently provides, advocates recently told The Texas Tribune.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune. The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy.