Texas House Democrats Introduce Bill To Raise Teacher Pay
The Texas House Democratic Caucus unveiled a $40 billion school finance proposal on Thursday that includes teacher salary raises and an increase to the state's per-student spending.
The measure, called the Fully Fund Our Future Act, was filed to counter legislation presented by the Republican majority that would implement a school voucher-like program.
"We have this bill today because it is the opposite of a voucher scam — because the voucher scam seems to take money out of the public school system, to defund education that has already been defunded," Representative Gene Wu told reporters at a press conference Thursday in Austin. "This bill intends to do what we should have done all along, that we should have made education our top priority."
The Texas Senate passed its version of school vouchers last week. The proposal would grant qualifying students $8,000 to use to pay for private or parochial schooling. Homeschoolers would get $1,000.
The Democrats’ proposal would appropriate $40 billion to accomplish its goals, which include a $15,000 pay raise for all public school teachers.
Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, said that salary bump is the cornerstone of the bill.
"It's time we stop paying just lip service to support our Texas teachers and start paying them their actual worth," she said.
Her proposal would also give a $5,500 bonus to school support staff like educational aides and cafeteria workers.
It would also increase the basic allotment — the dollar amount public schools get per student — to $8,947. The basic allotment is currently $6,160.
Public schools advocates say the current amount is not enough to educate a child in Texas and that it should be increased, something that hasn't happened since 2019.
