Governor declares teacher pay, school choice as emergency items

Gov. Greg Abbott declared a handful of topics as emergency items on Sunday, Feb. 2, allowing state legislators to pass legislation on those topics before the constitutionally established 60-day limit. The Texas Legislature meets for 150 days every two years and spends the first sixty days organizing committees and filing bills, but with a declaration from the Governor, legislators can work more quickly to pass critical legislation.

Among the seven topics Abbott mentioned, two are of particular interest to teachers: teacher pay, and school choice. 

In his announcement on teacher pay, Abbott touted the creation of the Teacher Incentive Allotment program (TIA) in 2019, a framework through which some teachers can receive extra pay for increasing student test performance and scoring well on their appraisals. To increase teacher pay in this session, he said legislators should prioritize further investments in TIA, mitigate retire-rehire penalty costs, and increase all teachers’ pay, among other things. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath has also championed TIA as the best way for a teacher to increase their pay, as well as promoting teacher residencies as the best way for people to enter the profession. Both TIA and teacher residences suffer from low participation rates, but state leaders hope that a bold investment can bolster the teaching profession.

Regarding school choice, Abbott repeated claims that a majority of Texans favor school choice initiatives to all families in Texas. The Senate’s education savings account (ESA) bill, SB 2, would offer between $2,000 and $11,500 to around 100,000 families for uses ranging from homeschool materials to private school tuition. Proponents of the bill dismiss that ESAs are the same as school vouchers, saying that because the money does not go directly to the parents, it is a different thing, but most observers call it a school voucher because it takes state dollars and pays for private education. Additionally, Abbott pushed for increased funding for charter schools, virtual schools, and improving access to inter- and intra-district transfers.

With the House still waiting on committee assignments, it will likely be some time before either of these topics is meaningfully discussed in the lower chamber; the House’s schedule will be something of a bottleneck for any legislation this session. School vouchers are already on a fast track with SB 2, but we will have to wait to see what the preferred vehicle for teacher pay raises is.

TCTA closely monitors committee hearings and floor discussions and will keep you up-to-date with the latest on these two key topics.