AUSTIN, Texas — As the Senate races to move a school voucher bill out of its chamber, Austin House Democrat Gina Hinojosa is prepared to slow down the process in order to see an increase in teacher salaries.
“Our teachers are paid $10,000 below the national average. And that would mean we'd need another $9 billion in the budget for our neighborhood schools,” Rep. Hinojosa said.
Texas teachers on average make a little more than $62,000 a year. During this year’s State of the State address, Gov. Greg Abbott made increasing teacher pay an emergency item but afterward told The Dallas Morning news that the pay raises come with certain conditions.
“We believe that teachers should be paid based upon the quality of the product that they provide,” said Abbott.
Abbott proposed $750 million to increase the Teacher Incentive Allotment. The districts that opt into the program have different qualifiers for high-performing teacher pay raises. Education policy expert David DeMatthews says this program doesn’t address the state's struggle to recruit and retain teachers.
“The problem with only focusing on an incentive-based system is in recent years, you know, half the teachers being hired in public schools are uncertified because there's not a pool of people interested in this profession,” said DeMatthews.
The Senate’s budget proposal includes a $4,000 pay increase for teachers and an additional $6,000 for rural teachers.
“It's a good start,” said DeMatthews.
DeMatthews says a drastic increase is needed.
This may come if the lower chamber clears school vouchers, but House Democrats strongly alluded that they’ll vote against it.
“What I would say to the governor is put your money where your mouth is,” said Hinojosa.
Abbott has refused to increase school funding without a voucher bill, but after years of the House killing such bills, political scientist Cal Jillson believes this year it will pass the lower chamber.
“The House, I think, is still fundamentally unconvinced that a voucher program will not hurt public schools. And they're more worried about the public schools, certainly, than Dan Patrick has ever been or that the Senate seems to be,” said Jillson.
The concern over public schools indicates a strong possibility of teacher pay raises this year.
“So a lot of foot dragging, a lot of conversation until it becomes more clear what public schools get in exchange for approval of a voucher bill,” said Jillson.
Democrats want to see a $15,000 per teacher pay raise. Without it, Hinojosa fears districts and educators will lose more funding.
“It takes money out of our public schools and puts it into private schools where we don't have teachers paying into the teacher retirement system. It will blow up our teacher retirement system or our pension,” said Hinojosa.
Democratic legislators have filed bills to increase districts per pupil allotment while Republicans continue to try and cut property taxes that are helping keep some districts afloat amid a lack of increased funding.
