Senate Unanimously OKs Substitute Teacher Pay Raise Bill

The Senate Education Committee on Thursday unanimously recommended a committee substitute bill to increase pay and expand benefits for Texas teachers, sending the bill to the full body for consideration next week.

Senate Bill 26 would create a new program to offer raises for teachers based on experience and expand an existing performance incentive program. It also would give free preschool to children of public school teachers, and establish “liability insurance” for teachers as a measure to increase teacher safety, the author of the bill, Conroe Republican Sen. Brandon Creighton, told the committee on Thursday.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott declared teacher pay increases an emergency priority in his State of the State address earlier this month after years of complaints from public schools that the state needed to invest more in education to counteract inflation, retain skilled staff and prevent schools from shutting down.

The Senate’s $4.9 billion bill would establish a new Teacher Retention Allotment, offering teachers in small districts $5,000 raises for 3-4 years of experience and $10,000 raises for five or more years teaching.

Teachers in larger districts — with more than 5,000 students — would get about half that: an extra $2,500 for three to four years of experience and $5,500 for five or more years. Pay for teachers in rural school districts, which also often are smaller, usually trails pay in larger districts.

SB 26 also would expand the Teacher Incentive Allotment, a performance bonus program that the state created as part of a public education overhaul bill that the Legislature approved in 2019. It aims to provide a pathway to six-figure salaries for the top third of public teachers, as determined by student performance.

Since the program was created, participation has increased a hundred fold, Creighton told the committee on Thursday, from 300 teachers to 30,000. About two-thirds of the state’s school districts have enrolled in the program, he said.  

SB 26 as originally drafted would add two new performance tiers that would allow some teachers to get bonuses who don’t qualify under the current standards, and would boost the bonuses and pay caps for teachers already in the program.

As written, teachers who qualify as “acknowledged” or who are certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards would be eligible for a base $3,000 bonus per year, plus more if their school or district is rural or “high need” up to a cap of $9,000 per year.

The substitute version brought to the committee on Thursday eliminated the bonuses for board certified teachers, in the name of promoting bonuses based on “merit,” Creighton said.

He said the change would align with Abbott’s call specifically for “merit-based compensation programs” in his emergency item proclamation, “not compensation based on national certifications.”

“If the national board certification is as high quality as proponents suggest, I would expect that board certified teachers to earn that designation with or without that fast track, and that performance level will be shown in the classroom either way,” Creighton added.

The remaining changes to the bill were “non-substantive,” Creighton said, focused on clarifying that the retention pay raises would specifically go toward the teachers qualified for them, not just any teachers in the district.

At press time Friday afternoon, a full copy of the substitute version of the bill was not available on the official state website for legislation, Texas Legislature Online. An unofficial copy of the substitute bill provided by Creighton’s office is available below.

The final vote on Thursday was nine ayes and zero nays to not recommend the original version of the bill and to recommend the committee substitute. Republican Sens. Phil King of Weatherford and Brent Hagenbuch of Denton both were absent for the vote but voted in favor in writing, bringing the official count to 11 votes. Both Democrats on the committee — Sens. Royce West of Dallas and Jose Menendez of San Antonio — joined them in support.

The Senate is in recess until Monday, Feb. 24, at 9 a.m.  

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