House Bill 2, filed by state Rep. Brad Buckley, a strong advocate for school vouchers, is a lengthy bill that designates $8.5 billion to public education to specifically fund a variety of pressure points, most notably salaries. Gov. Greg Abbott has lauded the bill as a record-breaking contribution to the education sector that could change the tide of his state’s education ranking.
“Now is the time to make Texas No. 1 in educating our children," said Abbott in a press release. "House Bill 2 ensures that our schools are funded better than ever, teacher pay and student funding are at all-time highs, reading and math performance will improve, and students will be better prepared for the workforce. The foundation is now in place for Texas education to start climbing the ranks."
Just under half of the total, $4 billion, will go to increasing teacher pay by expanding the existing Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA), a pyramid-structured, “merit-based” bonus program that is not popular among some teachers, according to Clay Robison, a spokesperson for the Texas State Teachers Association.
Through the TIA, districts assign teachers to a tier based on their performance, which is usually judged by standardized test scores. Each tier carries a different bonus, but Robison says the scores are inadequate to measure a student’s progress and a teacher’s skill. Regardless, all teachers deserve equitable pay.
“We do not like the teacher incentive allotment because the average teacher pay in Texas is so far below the national average, and we believe every teacher deserves adequate pay because the vast majority of teachers in Texas are good teachers,” said Robison.
Problems With the Law
Texas teachers start their careers as some of the top-earning educators in the country, but their salaries quickly stagnate. By the end of their tenure, Texas teachers rank among the lowest paid, Robison says. The average salary for a Texas teacher is about $9,000 below the national average. Bolstering teacher pay in the state has been a primary concern for years, but according to Robison and Monty Exter, governmental relations director at the Association of Texas Professional Educators, few pay-raise programs address the stagnation of teacher pay in Texas, and HB 2 falls short again.
Another teacher-pay portion of the bill awards raises to teachers based on their experience and location. Teachers with three to four years of experience in districts with 5,000 or fewer students will get a $4,000 raise, and those with five or more years of experience will get $8,000. For larger districts, teachers with three to four years of experience will get a $2,500 raise, and those with five or more years of experience will get a $5,000 raise.
A chief complaint of the pay raise program structure is that it has the most significant impact on rural and wealthy school districts. While rural schools tend to have limited funding and teacher retention rates are particularly low in small districts, urban districts, such as Dallas Independent School District, serve the vast majority of Texas students and operate under the most significant deficits, but serve to benefit the least under the new programs.
“Many urban districts are still going to have teacher shortages,” Robison said. “They're still going to have not enough money to do all the programs that they need to do. This is going to give, this is going to help, but it's not going to cure.”
While the TIA claims to allow teachers to reach six-figure salaries at the top tier of the performance period, Exter said few will actually reach that classification, and most will already teach in high-paying, wealthy school districts.
“Wealthy districts make out like [bandits] under this program,” said Exter.
Another issue is that the bill boosts teacher pay, but leaves school workers who aren’t teachers, and even some who are, in the grey.
“We don't even know exactly who all a classroom teacher is going to be,” said Exter. “In the past, those across-the-board pay raises would have also caught counselors, librarians, all of those other people. We're not even 100% sure that the current raise is going to catch some folks like [special education] teachers. We are not sure if you don't have your own classroom, whether or not you are going to actually get this raise. We're not saying you're not, because you might, but it is unknown, and likely it's going to end up in a lawsuit to figure out who's getting this raise.”
Small Successes Are Still Not Enough
Exter and Robison agree that HB 2 was a conciliatory attempt to soften the blow dealt by SB 2.“They were trying to basically quiet some of the dissent over school vouchers,” Robison said. “They wanted vouchers. Obviously, that was their priority. They did vouchers, and then they tried to figure out what they were going to do about the public schools.”
Both Robison and Exter are happy to see teacher pay increased despite some of the downsides of the money-distribution structure. However, both think the pay increases are the bare minimum of what the state could be doing.
“The HB2 that we got was [the Senate saying] ‘Here's what we are willing to give you,’” Exter said. “I won't necessarily say that the Senate version of HB2 is going to play out in ways that are not positive because it is so new. We are going to have to see. But there are significant concerns from lots of different people.”
Robison says the “small step” toward bringing Texas teacher salaries up to the national standard is in the right direction. Still, the state must dedicate significant resources to improving the education system each session if lawmakers want to continue to boast.
“Abbott said something to the effect of wanting to make Texas number one in education,” Robison said. “Let me tell you, governor, you've got a long way to go. I'm not talking about the quality of education. I'm talking about the state support, the political support for education.”
