A few weeks ago, a Democrat and a Republican on the floor of the House were sparring over how much money to spend to support Texas public schools.
In the gallery above, members of the public watched the spectacle unfurl below. An Austin Democrat, James Talarico, confronted the author of the education spending bill. He asked whether this $8 billion plan will be enough to fix the issues the state’s schools are dealing with after years of inflation, teacher attrition and stagnant state spending.
The Republican author of the spending plan, Brad Buckley, responded by saying his bill is the largest investment in public education in the history of the state. And from the gallery came laughter and applause.
Talarico responded, “I’m going to take that as a no until I get a yes.”
This discussion centered around House Bill 2, which ultimately passed the chamber on an overwhelming bipartisan vote — 142 lawmakers voted yes, only 5 voted no.
Phil Jankowski, who covers state politics for the Dallas Morning News, said that among other things, HB 2 would increase the per-student allotment.
“In the bill as it’s written right now, [the per-student allotment would increase from] about $6,160 to $6,555,” he said. “It’s a 6.4% increase that comes with continued automatic increases that are tied to property values in a way. A decent portion of that, about 40%, is supposed to be dedicated towards increasing teacher pay, but the rest of it the school districts can kind of use more broadly for operations purposes.”
That change would be in the baseline student allotment districts receive per student annually — there are additional funds made available for districts for students in special education or who come from low-income families.
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Jankowski said one goal in raising teacher pay is to help with teacher attrition. A lot of teachers have left the profession in the last five years, and especially in some of the larger cities, districts have struggled to try to fill those classrooms with educators.
“In the aftermath of the COVID lockdowns, you’ve seen just this spike in the number of uncertified teachers at public schools and so-called districts of innovation,” Jankowski said. “This bill has incentives for teachers who are currently teaching and are uncertified to go get certification. And there are also provisions in the bill that would pay for things like certification testing and things like that in hopes of bringing that number down.”
There are a lot of studies and research that show that students in classrooms with uncertified teachers have worse outcomes — and also that uncertified teachers tend to not stay in the profession as long, Jankowski said.
Jankowski said educators are glad that funding is being taken up this session, at least compared to what happened in 2023 where no funding was added to public schools
“So educators are feeling good that they’re going to be getting some sort of a pay raise after what happened the last time,” he said. “[But] it’s like they’re trying to fill the hole with not enough dirt. … It’s still been quite a long time since the per-student allotment was last increased, and that number still doesn’t get to you know to basically like inflation numbers of things and and things like that. And it still would leave teachers probably in the middle of the road as far as the nation goes for average teacher pay.”
