AUSTIN, Texas — Putting a teacher pay raise and school choice bills on the same agenda has made the Senate Education Committee meeting a popular spot this session, with the promise of multiple hours of testimony, especially when it comes to vetting multiple voucher bills.

Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, is heading a combined public and higher education committee this session. He outlined the handful of bills on the docket, then offered the audience some guidance on how to plan their time.

What You Need To Know

  • Senate Education rolled out its proposed teacher pay raise during a hearing on Wednesday morning

  • The bill, Senate Bill 9, would offer a $2,000 pay raise for all teachers and an additional $2,000 for teachers in certain rural districts

  • The bill also would provide additional technical support for teachers who are just entering the classroom, including a residency program

  • The bill also places limits on out-of-classroom duties teachers have, such as cafeteria duty or bus duty

“Given the schedule I just laid out, I’d like everyone to be aware, if it’s your first time testifying at a hearing in the Texas Capitol, our hearing could be 8 hours, or it can be 20 hours,” Creighton told the audience. “So, we just want you to be aware if it’s your first time here, so you can make plans with your families and for travel arrangements.”

The only bill the committee heard before breaking for Wednesday morning’s Senate session was Senate Bill 9, which Creighton has called the Teacher Bill of Rights, which codifies many of the recommendations of an interim committee to address teacher recruitment and retention.

Senate Bill 9, which comes with an initial price tag of $3.3 billion over the next five years, provides an across-the-board pay raise for teachers, plus an extra bump for rural districts to bring their pay scales more in line with urban school districts.

The line in the bill for the across-the-board pay raise remains blank in the bill, although Creighton suggested $3.3 billion could cover a $2,000 across-the-board pay raise and an additional $4,000 pay raise for districts that currently fall below the state’s median salary. Those totals are far less than what many individual teacher unions are requesting. In Austin, teachers would like to see a $10,000 raise.

“We want pay raises for our teachers, with larger increases in smaller districts to help overcome economies of scale,” Creighton said. “We have a starting salary average of $58,000, $59,000 across the state, but many of our teachers in rural Texas are still in the $30s, even low $40s, on the pay scale.”

Urban districts typically raise their pay in tandem to compete for new teachers. That’s left rural districts with lower salaries and a tougher time recruiting teachers, especially in high-demand areas.

Multiple Republican states are rolling out their own version of either a Parent Bill of Rights or a Teacher Bill of Rights in the current legislative session. Louisiana passed its Teacher Bill of Rights in 2003, amending it in 2008. Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed his own version of a Teacher Bill of Rights in January. It’s moving through the Florida legislature right now and is far less generous on teacher pay raises.

More than half of all teachers in Texas schools today were trained through for-profit or nonprofit alternative certification programs. Some of those programs educate teachers on how to teach while they are on the job, with the certification program taking a portion of the new teacher’s paycheck to cover the cost of the program.

An estimated 20% of all newly hired teachers have no preparation or certification when they come into the classroom in Texas, leading to a revolving door of unprepared and under-prepared teachers leaving the profession, said Ryan Franklin, who heads up policy and advocacy at Educate Texas.

Other components in the bill to address that issue would be to add a teacher quality assistance unit at the Texas Education Agency to provide early teachers with technical assistance. Funding also is added for a teacher residency program to pair early teachers with established teacher training programs. And the bill has additional funds to bump the salary of “master” teachers.

A separate grant was also created to defray the cost of re-hiring retired teachers. Retired teachers who return to the classroom full-time give up their pension and must make pension contributions.

Other aspects of the bill are more nebulous. The bill creates a teacher time study to determine what tasks teachers are doing that are not offering a return on investment. Additionally, teachers will have to be consulted on intervention plans for students who have been removed from the classroom for behavioral issues. And those activities considered to be outside duties  — such as bus or lunchroom duty  — will have to be limited to no more than 30 minutes outside the instructional day.