Texas Senate pitches new school funding plan

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

The Texas Senate education committee on Monday advanced its counterproposal to the House’s multibillion-dollar public school funding legislation, a measure that would establish a long-term teacher pay raise system tied to years of experience, phase out the state’s reliance on untrained teachers by the end of the decade and overhaul the state’s special education funding system.

Sen. Brandon Creighton, who chairs the Senate’s education committee, called his version of House Bill 2, an $8 billion investment into Texas public schools, “exciting and historic,” adding that the bill would encompass more funding “than any public education package that we’ve ever passed.”

“Every single district, from Beaumont to El Paso, from Wichita Falls to McAllen, benefits,” the Conroe Republican said during a public hearing for the legislation last week.

The bill is the result of ongoing negotiations between leaders in the House and Senate who have worked to find middle ground between their diverging funding proposals as the end of the 2025 legislative session approaches. The Senate took many of the education bills it passed earlier in the session and combined them into a sweeping 225-page proposal.

HB 2 now travels to the full Senate for further consideration.

During early parts of last week’s hearing, legislators and members of the public highlighted two notable deviations in the Senate bill from the House’s nearly $8 billion proposal: a modest $55 per-student increase to public schools’ base funding and the absence of millions in funding for fine arts.

House lawmakers’ version of the bill sought to boost schools’ base money, known as the basic allotment, from $6,160 to $6,555 per student, with future increases tied to property values. They also reserved $15 million per year for students in grades 6-12 enrolled in courses like art and music.

The Senate’s version of HB 2 originally did not include additional funding that the House had set aside for bilingual education students, though an updated version of the legislation released on Monday included money for such programs. The bill still leaves out a provision that sought to extend free prekindergarten to children with disabilities.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats during the public hearing expressed concerns about the revised legislation imposing certain mandates on traditional public schools that do not apply to charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately managed.

Under both the House and Senate proposals, for example, only traditional public schools would be required to keep educators without formal training from teaching core subjects and to notify parents when their child has an uncertified instructor.

“With all due respect, sometimes it feels like we call charter schools public schools when it’s convenient, when we’re helping, but we exclude them from the public school requirements,” said Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio.

Among the roughly six dozen Texans who signed up to testify on the Senate’s version of HB 2, many spoke in favor of the bill’s overall investment in public education. But they raised worries about its proposal to only increase districts’ base funding by $55 per student, which they said could potentially leave their schools and staff without adequate support.

John Griggs, superintendent of the Blooming Grove Independent School District, called on the Senate education committee to bring back key provisions in the House bill, notably the nearly $400 per-student increase to the basic allotment and bigger investments in smaller schools.

“We’re fortunate to have adopted a balanced budget this year, something that many small rural districts across the state couldn’t achieve,” said Griggs, whose district is located about 50 miles south of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. “While that might sound like a win on paper, the reality is it came at a cost — a cost paid by our students, our teachers and our programs. We had to make tough decisions. Budgets were slashed. Our custodians and bus drivers, paraprofessionals, are barely making enough to live on. And most importantly, our students are missing out on experiences they deserve. Our students and staff and our community deserve better.”

Alicia Noyola, executive director of the South Texas Association of Schools, thanked the Legislature for its focus on public school funding but said the “most troubling” aspect of the Senate proposal is that it leaves “districts with very little flexibility.”

“Most funds are predirected, with almost nothing left for basic operations,” Noyola said.

The public hearing came less than three weeks before the 2025 legislative session ends on June 2. Earlier in the year, lawmakers promised that passage of a private school voucher bill and public school funding legislation would happen in tandem. Gov. Greg Abbott has since signed the voucher program into law. The House and Senate, meanwhile, have not yet come to terms on how the final version of public school funding legislation will look.

Lawmakers have insisted that Texans should not be concerned about the delay and said they are working diligently to arrive at a final agreement. House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, endorsed the Senate’s revised plan on Wednesday, adding that “we are very optimistic and very excited where we’re at.” It remains unclear how the majority of Burrows’ chamber will respond.

In place of a significant increase to schools’ base funding like the House’s version of the bill proposes — which would largely help districts raise pay for teachers and support staff — 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.

Creighton said last week that a significant raise to the basic allotment would mean taking money away from other areas of critical need, including the more than $4 billion in long-term teacher pay raises the Senate is proposing. He also reiterated his belief that direct state investment in areas like teacher pay can free up districts to use more of their base funding elsewhere, like salaries for support staff.

School districts have advocated to raise 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. Districts are adopting budget deficits in droves, while many are considering or have decided to close schools, in no small part due to stagnant funding.

The Senate is also proposing an expansion of 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 Senate previously sought to keep educators with their national teaching certification from automatically qualifying for raises under the Teacher Incentive Allotment, but the new version of the bill would allow them to continue participating. The latest proposal would grant the State Board for Educator Certification authority to review educators’ national certification status, which less than 1% of Texas educators have earned, and either reauthorize or take away a teacher’s participation in the incentive program.

A Republican State Board of Education member, Julie Pickren, recently criticized the rigorous national training for prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which Republican state lawmakers have targeted even as Texas’ student and state populations have grown more diverse.

The Senate version of HB 2 also would ensure that, by 2030, traditional public schools no longer hire uncertified teachers to lead instruction in core classroom subjects like math and reading. The state would provide funding for educator preparation and mentorship programs, compensating teaching candidates and current teachers who commit to high quality training initiatives.

Additionally, the legislation would invest roughly $1.3 billion in Texas’ special education funding overhaul, more than what both the House and Senate previously proposed.

The new funding system would direct funding to schools based on the individual needs of each child with a disability, as opposed to basing it on how much time the student spends in a particular classroom setting. Districts would also receive $1,000 for each evaluation assessing a student for a disability — and $3,000 for evaluations of homeschool or private school students during the next two school years.

Public schools are required by federal law to conduct those evaluations, even for students who are not regularly on their campuses. The state’s recently signed private school voucher law will require public schools to conduct the assessments within 45 days for families hoping to participate in the program.

First round of TribFest speakers announced! Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Maureen Dowd; U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio; Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker; U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-California; and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas are taking the stage Nov. 13–15 in Austin. Get your tickets today!