Texas has made the largest investment in teacher incentive pay programs in the nation with an investment of nearly $900 million in the first five years.

In 2005, Gov. Perry issued Executive Order RP51, which directed the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to use $10 million in federal funds each year to create the Governor’s Educator Excellence Grants (GEEG).  This three-year incentive program targeted schools with a large percentage of economically disadvantaged students and allowed enough flexibility for campuses and teachers to participate in the design of their own plan. 

GEEG led to the creation of two additional teacher incentive programs by the legislature in 2006 – the Texas Educator Excellence Grants (TEEG) and the District Awards for Teaching Excellent (DATE).

Before 2005, Texas teacher compensation was based on the number of years spent in the classroom.  Challenging the long-protected teacher compensation system was an uphill battle but worth the effort. Gov. Perry has said, “Excellence should not be rewarded the same as mediocrity; otherwise, mediocrity becomes its own incentive.” Texas now has the ability to reward results and pay our best and brightest teachers more for excellence in the classroom. 

Often, struggling schools find themselves with the most inexperienced teachers.  Teacher incentive pay that is based on a teacher’s ability to show significant academic progress with economically disadvantaged students allows these struggling districts to attract the most effective teachers to difficult learning environments.

GEEG
Created as a three-year program, GEEG targeted 100 campuses with high percentages of economically disadvantaged students who were either high performing campuses or demonstrated significant gains in student achievement.  The program required districts to award 75% of the funds to high-performing teachers and allowed the remaining 25% to be used for teacher recruitment and retention.  Local campuses worked with their teachers to design plans that rewarded teachers who improved student performance and also incentivized teachers to remain in these hard to staff schools.

TEEG
After the special legislative session in 2006, GEEG emerged with a sibling, TEEG.  Initially, TEEG provided $100 million a year to target approximately 1,200 of the state’s most economically disadvantaged campuses.  In 2007, building on the program’s success, the Texas Legislature appropriated $195 million for the biennium to continue the program (2007-08 and 2008-09 academic years).

DATE
The legislature provided $147.5 million for DATE’s inaugural academic year, 2008-2009.  The legislature increased funding for DATE to $197.8 million for academic year 2009-2010 as well as academic year 2010-2011.  Rather than a defined eligibility list, all districts can participate in DATE but must submit an application to TEA in order to participate.  Districts are given significant flexibility in determining which of their campuses will participate and how the award plan will be designed.  State statute requires that at least 60% of the grant be used to reward classroom teachers who positively impact student academic achievement or growth, based on an objective measure.  The remaining 40% may be spent on teacher stipends, mentoring, and other retention efforts.  Based upon the state’s experience with GEEG and TEEG, districts choosing to participate in DATE are required to complete a one-year planning cycle, working closely with TEA, in preparation for implementation of the program.

At the close of the 81st Legislative Session, the lessons learned from TEEG rolled into DATE, creating one comprehensive, statewide incentive pay program. Over the last five years, Texas has demonstrated national leadership by continuing its financial commitment to improve student performance by rewarding our best teachers.

At the district level, Texas school districts have thrown their support behind incentive pay programs.  Specifically:

*GEEG had 100 percent participation by eligible campuses. 

*Of the campuses eligible for TEEG, over 90 percent applied for and received funding in each of the first three years.  District participants ranged in size from those serving only 60 students to those serving over 180,000.

*DATE has over 200 school districts participating, including the largest districts in the state: Houston, Dallas, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, and Corpus Christi.  Current DATE participation represents over half of all Texas schools, teachers, and students.