Creighton files sweeping “teacher pay” bill and schedules hearing with less than 48 hours’ notice to the public
Date Posted: 2/19/2025 | Author: Mark Wiggins
Sen. Brandon Creighton (R–Conroe) filed the Senate’s “teacher pay” bill Tuesday afternoon and immediately scheduled a hearing on the bill with less than 48 hours’ notice. Creighton is chair of the Senate Education K-16 Committee.
Senate Bill (SB) 26 seeks to impact the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA), teacher evaluations, school district compensation policies/performance pay, and educator liability insurance; offer potentially limited-time pay increases styled as a Teacher Retention Allotment (TRA); and repeal automatic pay increases driven by the Basic Allotment.
Let’s take a look at the headline provision of the bill first: the pay raise portion or “Teacher Retention Allotment.” The TRA provides districts money for teacher pay increases for the next two years based on the size of the district’s student population and experience of the teacher.
In districts with 5,000 students or fewer, the bill would add an allotment providing an additional $5,000 for teachers with three to five years of experience and $10,000 for those with five or more years of experience.
In districts of more than 5,000 students, SB 26 would provide teachers with three to five years of experience an additional $2,500 and those with five or more years of experience an additional $5,000.
There are two primary differences between the proposed new TRA and prior pay raises:
- First, the TRA would apply ONLY to classroom teachers; it does not apply to everyone subject to the minimum salary schedule and certainly not to all non-administrative staff. There is no new money in SB 26 or any other Senate bill for pay raises for any public school employees other than classroom teachers.
- Second, prior pay raises were more or less permanent. To undo the raise, the Legislature was required to file a new bill removing the pay raise language from statute. Not so with the TRA. The TRA does not directly require districts to give teachers a raise; rather, it gives districts money they can only spend on teacher raises. This is an important distinction. Normally, the Legislature increases formula funding (such as the Basic Allotment) and requires districts to spend part of that money on raises. To undo that type of increase, the Legislature would have to pass a bill specifically repealing the required raise. With the TRA, a future Legislature could simply not appropriate money for the TRA in the budget bill, and the raise would go away without any change to statue. This is a common occurrence with grants and allotments. This would place districts in a terrible situation with their teachers. In order to pass a balanced budget, the district would either have to lay off enough teachers to maintain the same level of pay for the remaining teachers, or it would have to take back everyone's raises to avoid layoffs. The only other option would be adopting a huge deficit budget to delay firing people or cutting pay—hardly a sustainable course of action. None of these are good options for the district or educators.
Ostensibly because the Senate wants to shift to an RTA-based system, the bill repeals the automatic pay raise language placed into law as part of 2019’s House Bill (HB) 3. Under that provision, state law currently requires that 30% of any overall increase in school funding be spent on increasing teacher compensation any time the Legislature increases the Basic Allotment. The current law has the benefit of automatically increasing teacher pay most any time the Legislature increases the school funding formulas without having to haggle over a separate pay raise provision. Additionally, the HB 3 provision from 2019 covers all non-administrative staff. There are currently proposals in the House to increase the HB 3-era percentage from 30% to 50%.
Impact on the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA)
Beyond creating the TRA, Senate Bill (SB) 26 would expand performance pay programs, most specifically TIA. SB 26 would introduce a new bottom rung of TIA designations, "acknowledged" and “national board certified,” to the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA). The bill is silent on how many teachers could be designated as acknowledged; there are statutory limits on how many teachers may be designated as recognized, exemplary or master under the current system. The new acknowledged designation would become the entry-level designation in terms of the associated stipend, which would start at $3,000. Stipends on the existing designations would move up, capping off at $12,000 to $36,000 for master designees, a designation capped by statute at no more than 5% of teachers. Currently fewer than 5% of teachers hold any TIA designation. In addition to district-assigned designations, teachers with National Board Certification would continue to be designated at the lowest tier.
The bill would require the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to assist districts and campuses in setting up TIA programs, including providing models for local optional designation systems and establishing partnerships between districts interested in TIA and those that have already implemented the program. The bill would provide grant funding to assist this work. In addition to expanding the existing TIA designations, SB 26 would create “enhanced TIA districts.” The bill would offer a 10% bonus in TIA funding to enhanced TIA schools, districts, or charters that goes directly to the district or charter, not to educators. Participating schools would be required to put comprehensive school evaluation and support systems in place that put all instructional staff on a performance-based compensation program, include implementing a strategic evaluations system aligned with TIA and ensuring "substantially all" classroom teachers are eligible to earn TIA designations. This would be challenging for educators of non-STAAR tested subjects due to requirements related to collection of student performance data. Participating districts or campuses would be prohibited from implementing across-the-board raises for employees except in the case of "significant" inflation.
Additional provisions related to teacher pay and liability insurance
Outside of provisions related to teacher pay, the bill would make the children of classroom teachers eligible to participate in district prekindergarten programs, something many districts already offer teachers as an employee benefit—so many, in fact, that TEA already even lists it as a common benefit for teachers on the agency's website.
The bill would also order TEA to contract with a third-party vendor to provide optional liability insurance to teachers. The bill would not prohibit the vendor from charging for this service, and ATPE has confirmed the intention is that teachers would be charged for this optional insurance program. The bill is silent on the level of coverage, but it seems fairly clear it would be liability only and not include legal services such as employment protection or grievance assistance, particularly since TEA/SBEC itself is often the opposing party in those actions. In a clear swipe to organizations such as ATPE that provide both insurance and legal protection as well as advocacy on behalf of our members, SB 26 would prohibit the state vendor from lobbying for teachers, engaging in political activities, or advocating for public schools.
Nearly simultaneous with the text of SB 26 being made available to the public, Creighton posted notice that the Senate Education K-16 Committee would hold a public hearing on the bill at 11 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 20—leaving educators and members of the public less than 48 hours to read and digest the bill and make plans to come to Austin to register their positions.
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Looks like we have a smoke and mirrors bill. Putting out large numbers (at least in teachers eyes, anyway) , addressing small and large student populations, and jumping on the TIA bandwagon all looks good; but was there any consideration, conversation, or concern from an actual educator considered? It look like no since the bill was filed, sent to committee, and voted out in 48 hours of the text of the bill being released to the public. Legislators need to involve the people most affected when they are developing laws. These bills affect real lives, not just the words on the page.
Deceptive in message, mission and timing --vote NO!
This bill will just enlarge the hamster wheel of artificial testing, documentation and useless "training" teachers will have to endure to get a tiny raise! Teacher pay is indeed a huge problem in retention, but the larger issue is the poor curriculum they''re saddled with, the myriad documentation requirements designed to prove they are doing something, and the endless "training" which just introduces new "concepts" and refines the jargon. It does virtually nothing to inspire learning by students! Vote NO on the monstrosity!!!
Texas wake up! We will be a state of illiterate people, and all the companies who are here will move. Why do you think our founding Fathers in Texas ( Pres. Lamar). Provided for education! We have a teacher shortage this is only making things worse.
Vote No! Stop the insanity.
Everyone better call their representatives before any vote can happen with this craziness!
Unionize. Stand together. We all strike. We force their hand. Let’s stop being whiny sheep and cause change!
Once again our legislature tries to deceive teachers and the public! Teachers have been belittled once again! Ridiculous bill!
It is time for ATPE, TRTA, TSTA, TCTA, and TFT to merge or somehow rally together and stand up to these idiots and say no way are we accepting this! Educators it’s now time to put some effort on these association to stand up and protect our profession. Enough is enough!! We must rally together!!
Smells of the Dallas Commit Partnership TEI merit pay scheme that caused 10,100 teachers to flee DISD under Superintendent Mike Miles. Creighton is using semantics and slick marketing for this bad bill.
My take on this is that it is a poison pill. It has enough of a sweet coating (pay raise) to sound palatable while they sell it but this shell covers the toxic bait & switch concealed within with the ability to cut funding at the drop of a hat. If this goes into effect, it will have severe repercussions for public school districts with NO consideration to the impact it will have on our students and eventually our society. Don''t get me wrong, I''m all for merit based pay but who determines merit? Is it open for cronyism/nepotism? Without clear and objective guidelines and well defined checks and balances it will end up with poor implementation and further eroding of our public schools. The rushed 48 hour window for debate is being used to bypass criticism and avoid the careful deliberation that this subject deserves. My biggest question is who is really behind this push? The governor has made inplementing a voucher system his top priority for the last few years and has expended tremendous political capital to force it through. No one goes to this much effort without a reason. Who is waiting in the wings to swoop in and with a replacement for public education when the current system is driven out? If you follow the money: there are approximately 35 billion annual reasons for an unscrupulous person to target the education funds supporting ~5.5 million Texas students. The real question is who stands to profit at their expense. . .
Teacher need the support of our parents under stand what our Teacher do for all kids. Speak up parents IT will cost you parents to loose money and education for your kids . We as teachers don''t money on kids. We have education to make a future for your kids
I think anytime a bill is pushed through with only a 48 hour window for public hearings to be held they know how bad it is. They do not care about or for our schools, children, or educators. We all need to be calling our representatives and logging our opinion of this bill so they can have a foot to stand on and fight for us, not against us.
What teacher mistreated Creighton so much that he has absolute and hatred for us? Not to mention that he thinks he can fool us. This is horrendous and sets districts up for potential financial ruin, but that’s probably the point, right?
It’s clear to see that this Senator is with the Governor in destroying our Public School System with the vouchers for Private schools, and now with this bill putting loops and strings on teacher raises. Do away with the TEI , TIA, and any other program that makes it impossible for teachers to get raises. Go back to the pay scale based on number of years of service, and longevity. As for insurance… that’s a joke too. Not going to give raises yet expecting g them yo pay more for insurance. We need to vote out those not gor Teachers.
Excellent analysis, as usual, Mark. The more I read, the more I was shocked. This bill is nothing more that smoke and mirrors - sounding like it''s all about increasing teacher pay, but really just a lot of words that will eventually amount to nothing. I see committees, district finance offices, TEA, and others all monkeying around with the language until nothing actually gets delivered. If districts get to decide whether or not they pass on extra compensation, I don''t know that teachers will ever see it - we already see districts playing fast and loose with Dual Credit stipends and National Board stipends. And the fact that the TRA could be phased out by simply cutting off funding, well, we all know that any sign of a ''funding shortfall'' will put the TRA on the chopping block first, without so much as a public discussion. As for the TIA, we have already seen districts start placing roadblocks for participation and recognition. The metrics are arbitrary and for non-tested subjects, the metrics simply don''t exist - and we certainly don''t see districts placing any kind of priority for developing them. Will it simply boil down to a single test or measurement, which means high-stakes testing will determine teacher compensation. No Thanks!
One more attempt to throw money in our faces thinking we are dumb enough to fall for it. We went against vouchers last session knowing it also meant we would it would kill any bill for public ed. Now he''s trying to make it look like a heap of good when we know it''s just a disguise. Bad bill, no thank you Mr. Creighton !
So can a district with 5004 students kick out 4 students to get all a bigger raise? Or hand out their own ESA to bring population down to 5000?
I’m sorry but how many of the people sitting in this “decision making arena” have a teacher to thank for their ability to “read and write”⁉️ To bad “common sense” is not a requirement for election. It is absolutely absurd that these so called “leaders” are out to destroy the education system that helped them get where they are today.
Why are you trying to kill public education? This is a terrible bill. Fully fund public schools and pay teachers what they are worth - maybe then they will stay. Terrible, just terrible. Trying to rush it through because you know it’s terrible for teachers.
Let’s consider this as well… If I am reading this correctly. Teachers in a school district with over 5,000 students will receive less money than those fewer than 5,000 students. Some districts with more than 5k students are also in “property rich school districts” and are required to pay “recapture funds” back to the state. One school district has paid an average of $52.5 million for the past four years. Recapture? Robin Hood?
What an outrageously cynical and dishonest anti-educator bill disguised as a pay raise. Stop playing games with my taxes and my profession, and just support the 5 million + school children of Texas as our Constitution demands!
Excellent analysis of this bad bill.
There are so many holes in this bill: 1 disparity of allotment to large vs small districts 2 repeal of the current bill on compensation - bad on so many levels 3 another third party vendor? We’ve had such great luck with them regarding educational issues (insert eye roll). This is not a fix. This is a way to place the onus of overdue pay raises on the already overburdened educators’ backs.
This bill appears to be structured to look good but will actually be bad for teachers. Stop trying to cut teacher compensation and make it look like you are helping them. We can see through it. And ramming it through quickly is deceitful. Shame on you. Teachers are paid badly already. Stop trying to make it worse.
No thanks.
Vote no on SB 26. Providing money for raises for the next 2 years does nothing to improve teacher retention overall. This is merely a bandaid and will prolong solving this issue. I am also against TIA in its entirety, so anything with expanding that is a no for me. This entire bill should be tossed and a bill with actual substance needs to be proposed.
This bill is AGAINST teachers and school districts. This bill does nothing to improve funding for our schools. Teachers desperately need a pay raise however, we don’t need strings attached!! Shame on you Creighton for trying to ruin public education!!!