Every two years, lawmakers and political officials gather in Austin in order to discuss and pass laws in the Texas Legislature– this is called session. In 2023, the 88th legislative session is already underway, with some game-changing bills on the table, according to the Texas Tribune. Among those bills are house bills raising teacher pay, changing funding tactics for school, and altering things like vouchers and accountability for charter schools.

One bill that is very important to educators across the state is one that would raise teacher pay. Under the proposed Senate Bill (SB) 657, teachers that stay in the profession and in the same district could receive $10,000 annually for four years. The bill would also give students a $40,000 scholarship to pursue teaching, in an effort to combat the teacher shortage, according to the Texas Tribune. LASA AP Government teacher Ronny Risinger said that the issue is near and dear to his heart.

“It has come to my attention that quite a few people are saying that we need to raise teacher pay, and I do at the state level, believe that’s absolutely necessary,” Risinger said. “We have a huge 30 plus billion dollar surplus, and so certainly the state’s share of education funding could be raised substantially.”

Bills like SB 657 and similar bills like House Bill 1548 would give teachers up to a $15,000 pay raise. A sum that, according to Risinger, would be substantial, but unlikely.

“So the issue becomes will school choice be paired with increasing teacher pay, and that’s kind of where that’s where the rub comes in,” Risinger said. “[James] Tallarico, who used to be my house representative, introduced a bill to raise teacher salaries $15,000 a year, which would be a substantial raise. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but if there were ever going to have any substantial teacher raise, the most conservative Republicans are going to demand some access to school choice initiatives, whether it be expanded statewide vouchers, expanded charter schools, or what have you.”

Another issue in this legislature is that of school funding. For a long time, school funding has been based on attendance, not enrollment, which has led, in many low-income schools and schools all over the state, for students to go to school when they are sick to keep funding, De Leon said. State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, filed House Bill 31, which proposes basing the state’s public education funding system on student enrollment instead of average attendance, according to the Texas Tribune. Marty De Leon is a lobbyist for school districts across the state of Texas, and said that in the state of Texas, each student’s attendance is worth $6,160 of funding to their district.

“The pandemic has shown us that if you come to school, and you’re sick, you might be infecting other students,” De Leon said. “So it’s not a good idea for you to go to school. If someone in your class has COVID, they must sit out a week before they can come back. Well, that means they miss five days of school. The way school districts are funded, again, it’s based on attendance, needs to be updated and modernized. If half the school district is sick, for example, then they lose half their funding.”

Another prevalent issue is the recapture system, something that De Leon describes as a “robin hood” system in which the funding from wealthier districts is redistributed by the state to less affluent ones. $800 million from Austin Independent School District are redistributed to other districts.

“It’s a growing concern,” De Leon said. “It’s not easy for any school district to remit that amount of money and not have a detrimental impact on its students and teachers.”

Senior Catherine Masey, a member of Youth and Government, said that she thinks the correct issues are being addressed as far as school life is concerned. She said SB12, a bill that would require students to take a mental health course before graduating, is a step forward.

“I think it is super important, maybe one of the most important bills, discussion in response to the Uvalde massacre, and I think that the reason school shootings happen is because kids fall through the cracks,” Masey said. “This bill is, hopefully, a step in the right direction to filling in those cracks.”

The end of this Legislative session is May 29, by which lawmakers hope to effect some changes for the Texas Public Education system. However, according to the Texas Tribune, the earliest that some of the bills passed in the session can go into effect is Aug 27, 2022.