The proposal sets a few possible points of contention between the House and Senate, including how much money should families get through the program.

A Texas Senate bill filed on Tuesday would provide long-term pay raises to teachers based on years of experience, expand a state program that offers raises to instructors based on student performance and allow educators to enroll their children in pre-K free of charge.

Last school year, the average teacher in Texas made thousands of dollars less than teachers in other states. A nearly $5 billion bill filed Tuesday in the Legislature seeks to provide across-the-board raises and put more money toward bonuses.

SB 26 expands the Teacher Inventive Allotment (TIA) a merit-based pay program that gives bonuses to top-performing teachers based on academic growth. Under SB 26, 50% of teachers in a district can participate in the teacher incentive program, compared to the current cap of 33%.

Read more For the first time since Gov. Greg Abbott declared raising teacher pay an emergency item, the Senate laid out exactly what new teacher pay guidelines would look like.

Among a litany of education-related bills filed this year, elected officials in the state have made raising teacher pay a priority for the legislative session.