Texas governor announces $1.6B deal for teacher raises
Source: AP
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday that $1.6 billion in teacher raises are coming in a deal partly driven by classroom unrest across the U.S. and Republicans who sharply changed course on public education ahead of 2020 elections.
Abbott trumpeted the pay hikes near the end of an unusually muted session of the Texas Legislature, where a weakened GOP majority largely retreated from culture wars that had made the state Capitol a recurring national battleground over abortion, immigration crackdowns and LGBT rights.
But after losing more than a dozen seats in the 2018 midterms — and barely hanging onto others — Texas Republicans who have angered teachers over spending cuts and appeals to religious and private campuses announced they would prioritize public education. The system of funding schools for more than 5 million students was declared barely constitutional in 2016.
“In the inauguration I made some pretty bold promises to the people of Texas,” said Abbott, who was sworn into a second term in January. “I said we must reward teachers in school districts that achieve results, we’ve done that. I said we must prioritize spending in the classroom, we’ve done that.”
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