Texas teachers lose pay raises in voucher fight. Do they have another chance for an increase?

A bill that some saw as the last remaining vehicle for teacher pay raises isn’t going to pass this session, as the Texas House and Senate feud over a voucher-like program, the bill author said.

The House bill included an increase in the amount of money schools get per student and increased the minimum salaries for teachers, said Ken King, a Republican from Canadian Texas who authored the proposal. But it was amended in the Senate to include a program for education savings accounts, which would let students use public money to help pay for private education.

“Teacher pay raises are being held hostage to support” an education savings account plan, King said in a Saturday evening statement.

School choice for parents, particularly the program, has been a top priority of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott who has warned he’d call a special session if lawmakers adjourn without passing “meaningful school choice.” The comment came after the House narrowed a different bill that included education savings accounts.

Many supporters of education savings accounts supported Abbott’s State of the State address comment that he was going to fully fund public schools and the accounts, King said.

King also noted that the state budget this session allocates money for state employee pay raises.

“Only teachers are being punished over a political fight,” he said.

Kings bill was sent to a conference committee made up of House and Senate lawmakers to negotiate the differences, but King said the Senate wouldn’t budge. It was education savings accounts “or nothing,” he said.

“I am truly sorry that HB 100 did not pass, but in the end I believe students, teachers, and schools are better off with current law than they would be if we accept what the Senate is offering,” King said.

The office of Sen. Brandon Creighton, the bill’s Senate sponsor, didn’t immediately return an emailed request seeking comment.

In a Saturday statement to The Texas Tribune, Creighton criticized the House for not giving the Senate’s school choice bill that included the education savings accounts “a real vote.” The House made a “mockery” of and killed the Senate’s version of the bill that included teacher raises, he said.

“I learned today that the House had no intention of negotiating,” the statement reads. “I stand ready to make a deal and put politics aside because the 6 million children in Texas schools and our teachers deserve it.”

Abbott’s office did not immediately return an emailed request for comment Sunday.

“Teachers will not forget their raises became a bargaining chip, unlike raises for state employees,” said Monty Exter, the Association of Texas Professional Educators’ governmental relations director in a written statement. “They won’t forget that fact during a special session, and they won’t forget that fact at election time.”

The Texas State Teachers Association cheered the “the death of the voucher bill” but lamented that part of the state’s nearly $33 billion surplus wasn’t used to boost pay for teachers and other school employees.

“We hope that Gov. Abbott understands the message from the voucher bill’s failure and the strong anti-voucher vote in the House earlier this session and gives up his plans to waste legislators’ time and taxpayers’ money on a special session for another futile attempt to pass a voucher bill,” the association’s President Ovidia Molina said in a written statement. “But if he renews his voucher attack against public schools, we will be ready to continue our fight to protect public education.”