NBC 5 confirmed some basic details about a proposal to raise teacher pay in the Texas Senate. This comes after Gov. Greg Abbott declared teacher pay raises an emergency item in his State of the State address, which allows lawmakers to work on the topic in the first 60 days of the legislative session.
In Sunday's speech, Abbott laid out several education overhauls. Some will be more difficult to pass than others. On the basic idea, most lawmakers will likely agree on teacher pay raises.
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WATCH HEREAfter his speech, Abbott spoke to NBC 5's media partners at The Dallas Morning News.
“We want to make sure we’re putting teachers on a pathway to make a six-figure salary, many of which are already doing that in the Dallas area, and we will expand that across the state," said Abbott.
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SIGN UP He's aiming for across-the-board raises and then more new money will go to expand a teacher incentive program for performance-based pay or merit pay.
“We’re not in agreement that teachers should be paid just upon tenure. We believe that teachers should be paid based on the quality of the product that they provide," said Abbott.
NBC 5 confirmed the basic details of the plan from the office of Senate Education Chair Brandon Creighton, R - Conroe.
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They plan to use the $4.85 billion set out in the Senate proposed budget for a $4,000 across-the-board raise. Teachers in rural communities would get a $10,000 raise. Then, they plan to dedicate $750 million more to a teacher incentive program.
Free pre-kindergarten care for teachers, contract abandonment protections, and a pool for liability insurance are other members they plan to roll out in a "Teacher's Bill of Rights."
Many of those may pass in an up-or-down vote. However, across the state, Democrats argue Texas can do much larger raises with a $20 billion budget surplus.
“Twenty billion dollars to just get us to catch up with inflation," said Rep. Donna Howard, D - Austin, at an earlier press conference.
“We can take just half of this historic budget surplus and be able to give every Texas teacher to get a $15,000 pay raise," said Rep. James Talarico, D - Williamson County.
Whatever the final details pass out of the Texas Senate, the most intense debate will happen later this spring across the capitol in the Texas House. This teacher pay raise proposal will likely get caught up once again with a proposal for school choice vouchers.
That more controversial proposal would allow parents to use public school dollars on private and home schools. Disagreement over that "choice" proposal scuttled a multi-billion dollar school funding bill two years ago.
