Clock is ticking for Texas lawmakers to settle differences on $8 billion public school funding package

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Lawmakers called it the “Texas Two-Step,” promising that passage of a private school voucher bill and a multibillion-dollar public school funding proposal would happen in tandem. But with less than three weeks until the end of the 2025 legislative session, additional funding for cash-strapped public schools is dancing alone.

The Texas House and Senate moved swiftly to establish a voucher program but have stumbled over details on how to fund public education. Leaders in both chambers have insisted there is no cause for concern, saying they are working diligently to ensure that Texas’ 5.5 million public schoolchildren have what they need to succeed in the classroom.

The next major step in that direction is expected to happen Thursday, when the Senate education committee plans to hold a public hearing on its version of House Bill 2, a roughly $8 billion proposal seeking to tie teacher salary increases to years of experience, reduce Texas’ reliance on untrained teachers and overhaul the state’s special education funding model.

If the committee approves the proposal, the bill would then travel to the full Senate for further consideration. Passage in the Senate would formally open the door for the chamber to hammer out any disagreements with the House before sending the bill to Gov. Greg Abbott, though lawmakers say those discussions have already started.

“I believe that there's an agreement that will get moving,” Rep. Brad Buckley, the Salado Republican who chairs the House Public Education Committee, told The Texas Tribune earlier this month.

Sen. Brandon Creighton of Conroe, the Republican who leads the Senate education committee, said in a recent statement that lawmakers are making “meaningful progress on reconciling differences.”

House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, on Wednesday endorsed the Senate’s latest funding proposal, saying “we are very optimistic and very excited where we're at.” It remains unclear how the rest of his chamber will respond to the Senate legislation.

The House passed its own school funding proposal last month. That came months after the Senate began approving a slate of major public education finance bills — the most notable being a $4.3 billion measure focused on teacher pay that passed the chamber in February.

The Senate education committee’s hearing on its version of HB 2 comes three weeks after the panel received the House’s funding proposal. House Democrats and public education advocates have slammed Senate Republicans over HB 2’s lack of movement. Rep. Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat who chairs the House Democratic Caucus, distributed a memo to his colleagues this week characterizing the funding package as “languishing” in the Senate “without so much as a committee hearing.” Teacher advocacy organizations have agreed.

“I can’t stress this enough: Texas public schools are facing an existential crisis, and we need lawmakers to move with a real sense of urgency,” Zeph Capo, president of the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement earlier this month. “If lawmakers fail to deliver, we are heading into territory that I’m not sure our schools can come back from.”

School officials have called attention to the hard choices districts all over Texas have had to make — from adopting budget deficits to closing schools — as evidence that the state is not investing enough in public education. Creighton has urged critics to be patient, calling the negotiations “an unprecedented opportunity that deserves thoughtful, strategic consideration — not rushed decisions or halfway measures.”

Though lawmakers are navigating imminent end-of-session deadlines for other bills, HB 2 has until May 28 to make it through the Senate, the last day for the chamber to consider all bills. From there, five members from each of the chambers, led by Buckley and Creighton, will likely work to hash out their remaining differences in a closed-door conference committee. Whatever bill emerges from those negotiations would need a final vote in each full chamber before heading to the governor’s desk. The legislative session ends June 2.

At the top of the Legislature’s to-do list is figuring out whether Texas will boost schools’ base, per-student funding for the first time since 2019 and coming to terms on how the state will address teacher salaries, which rank 31st in the nation, according to a recent report from the National Education Association.

Here’s a breakdown of the work ahead.

Basic allotment

Legislators will need to sort out whether to provide public schools with an increase to their base funding for each student and, if so, by how much.

The House has proposed raising the funding, known as the basic allotment, from $6,160 to $6,555 per student. That $395 boost falls well short of the roughly $1,300 increase districts say they need to address inflationary pressures that have only intensified since the Legislature last raised the allotment in 2019.

The Senate, on the other hand, has opposed increasing schools’ base funding this session by any significant amount. The chamber’s education committee announced earlier this week that it would propose doing so by a modest $55 per student.

Republican senators would instead prefer to make targeted investments to ensure state funding reaches areas with the most needs, like special education and teacher pay. Creighton, the Senate education chair, has said direct state investment in those areas would free up districts to use their base funding elsewhere.

When endorsing Creighton’s plan on Wednesday, Burrows, the House speaker, downplayed the importance of maintaining the $395 increase that his chamber overwhelmingly voted for less than a month ago.

“You look at the things that we have championed all throughout session, and that's what we’re looking at,” the Lubbock Republican said. “Looking at just one number and not what the entire bill does, I don't think is what we need to be doing.”

How schools currently use their base dollars varies by district, but the bulk of the money flows toward salaries for full-time employees. Districts also use the funds to pay for essential services and goods, like utilities and insurance. Leftover dollars may cover other necessities, like school supplies and building maintenance.

School districts’ advocacy has focused on raising the allotment because it offers them the most flexibility to address the unique needs of their campuses, as opposed to money they can only use for specific purposes determined by the Legislature.

Capo, the teacher union leader, has called for an all-of-the-above approach that “marries the best qualities of both the House and Senate approaches,” including raising districts’ base funding and directing some money specifically toward teacher raises.

“We agree with Chairman Creighton that a dedicated allotment for teacher pay, stronger pathways to educator certification, and early intervention and support for students struggling academically are all great ideas,” Capo said. “The question shouldn’t be ‘teacher pay or basic allotment increase?’ but rather, ‘what do we need to fully support and stabilize public schools?’”

Teacher pay

The House and Senate must also determine how the state will address teacher salaries. In place of a significant increase to the basic allotment — which would largely help districts raise teacher pay — senators want to provide educators more money through the following system:

• Educators with 3-4 years of experience in school districts with 5,000 or fewer students would receive a $5,000 raise, while those with five or more years of teaching on their resume would earn $10,000.
• Educators with 3-4 of experience in school districts with more than 5,000 students would earn a $2,500 raise, while those with five or more years of experience would receive $5,500.

The House wants to direct 40% of schools’ base funding toward across-the-board raises for school staff, excluding administrators. Teachers with a decade or more of experience would receive the highest raises.

Lawmakers in both chambers are mostly aligned in their desire to expand the Teacher Incentive Allotment, a state program that offers pay raises to educators who demonstrate that they have improved their students’ academic outcomes. Only about 6% of Texas teachers currently receive raises through the performance initiative.

The chambers differ, however, in whether educators with a national teaching certification should continue to automatically qualify for raises under the incentive program. The House wants to keep them in while the Senate does not, citing a desire to ensure raises are awarded based on school districts’ standards and not those set nationally. A Republican State Board of Education member, Julie Pickren, recently criticized the national certification training for prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Teachers go through a rigorous four-part process to attain their national certification. Some among the less than 1% of Texas educators who earned the certification have credited it with greatly enhancing their work in the classroom.

Other differences

Both chambers want to curb Texas’ heavy reliance on uncertified teachers and to offer larger stipends to teachers who enter the highest quality training programs. But they still have to agree on the details of those incentives.

The House recently scrapped a provision in its school funding proposal that would have offered money to teachers who enter educator preparation programs. The Senate’s school funding proposal includes a plan to pay aspiring teachers for their training.

Lawmakers will also need to finalize details on their proposed overhaul of Texas’ special education funding model. Both chambers want to move away from the current system — which directs funding to schools based on how much time a student with a disability spends in a particular classroom setting — and replace it with a system that accounts for the individual needs of each child. However, the chambers’ differences include how much money should go toward the changes, as well as the timeline to implement the new funding model.

The House and Senate are also working through their differences on school safety funding, notably how much districts will receive for each student and how much each campus will get to pay for required safety upgrades following the 2022 Uvalde school shooting.

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