Texas Teachers may be getting a raise!

A bill that was introduced by the Texas Senate yesterday, proposes $7billion dollars for public education including a $5000 pay raise for teachers.

Senate Bill 3 would distribute state funding to schools based on the number of full -time classroom teachers they employ, and mandate that money for teacher pay raises.

This has been the main priority for Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick a Republican who at an event just last week was quoted as saying  "I want to give an across the board— I talked about in my campaign—a $10,000 raise on average over time. I think we can make a big step forward this year in doing that, "We have to lift the boat for all teachers up"

The Texas Tribune reports that Patrick was unsuccessful in trying to get teachers more money in 2017, and told districts to be better about the way they spend money after his proposal didn't include additional funding for pay raises leaving school districts to reprioritize existing funding to give teachers small raises.