In the upcoming school year 2025-26, Houston ISD teachers will be paid based on a new evaluation “pay-for-performance” system, which is different from the current state evaluations.
HISD’s new system, the Teacher Excellence System (TES), was unanimously approved by the HISD board and has four categories. The state’s version is the Texas Teacher Evaluation and Support System (T-TESS), which has two evaluation categories: teacher performance (65%) and student performance (35%).
TES will evaluate HISD’s roughly 11,000 educators in four domains:
- Quality of instruction (45%): This will be assessed through monthly “Spot Observations.”
- Student achievement (35%): Every course an educator teaches is tied to their student achievement objectives under six student achievement groups. The assessments include two metrics: growth and absolute achievement. While passing an exam is an absolute achievement, the percentage of growth students show from a beginning-of-year to middle-of-year assessment is considered a growth metric.
- Planning and professionalism (15%): This component includes how educators “fulfill their professional duties,” adhere to the “legal and ethical standards of their profession,” and foster learning in the classroom.
- Campus action plan (5%): Per HISD, this metric will act as a tool for instructional and organizational improvement by setting goals and measures for success.
Context
Teacher evaluations are mandated by law in Texas, requiring all classroom teachers to be appraised annually, either using the Texas Teacher Evaluation and Support System (T-TESS) or a locally developed system.
School districts can opt out of these systems through a District of Innovation plan (DOI) and develop their evaluations upon receiving DOI status from their board, which HISD did.
“At the end of the day, we want to ensure that your children have effective, proficient teachers, educators who nurture them and help them achieve, whether it’s reading, writing, math or preparation for college and career. This pay-for-performance model helps us do that,” HISD Superintendent Mike Miles said during an announcement. “Yes, it’s about teachers, but more importantly, it’s about our students and making sure they get the highest quality education possible. And that starts with an effective teacher in every classroom.”
Starting in 2026, new teachers will earn a base salary of $70,000, and those with three or more years of experience will start at $74,000.
Teachers rated as “Exemplary I” can earn up to $92,000 annually. Teachers at Miles’ 130 overhauled New Education System (NES) schools will receive an additional $3,000 to $9,000 per year, which is more than their peers at Priority and Underserved Area (PUA) campuses.
How the system works
The final version of TES comes after incorporating feedback from over 75 focus groups comprising 3,000 people. Student surveys were not integrated into the TES framework.
Per the TES guidebook, teachers of Math, English, Science, Social Studies and the Art of Thinking will be paid based on their category.
There are three different sets of evaluation levels:
- Unsatisfactory level: (3% of teachers), most of whom will not be allowed to teach in HISD the following year
- The middle levels: (Progressing I – 12%, Progressing II – 25% and Proficient I – 40%) a majority of the teachers (77%) will fall into these categories
- Distinguished levels: (Proficient II – 12%, Exemplary I – 5%, Exemplary II – 3%) comprising 20% of the teachers
Alyssa Murray Rocha, Deputy Chief of Academics, told the Defender that TES evaluators, who assess the teachers and score them based on the four categories, will include campus administrators like principals, assistant principals and counselors. Evaluators are required to be trained and certified.
HISD has built an evaluator certification program, where all evaluators “will have to prove that they are calibrated in HISD-specific tools, such as the spot observation form and are prepared to coach and develop their staff.” Potential evaluators would have to pass this calibration to assess teachers.
Considering teachers expressed concerns about the “planning and professionalism” metric, Rocha asserted that TES has been designed to eliminate implicit bias “as much as humanly possible” through training.
“Our student outcome metrics have to be designed and validated in such a way so that if you are teaching in River Oaks, you have the same chance of scoring proficient as if you’re teaching on the north side of Houston,” Rocha explained, adding TES will take into account factors like poverty and language differences. “We run a model to just make sure that we’re not unfairly penalizing one type of school versus another so that it’s equitable.”
Thus, TES will track a teacher’s growth from the beginning of a school year to mid-year, followed by mid-year to the end of the year, using “growth-based outcomes.” Rocha explained that if one teaches third-grade Math, they are evaluated in group A, where the third student outcome metric is based on NWEA MAP scores.
To address evaluation issues with Group F teachers, who teach courses without a national, state or local assessment, Rocha said HISD will provide them with a “menu of rigorous” and “equitable” Student Learning Objectives (SLOs).
TES operates on the principle of “target distribution,” a statistical method to rank teachers based on student performance, regardless of subject or grade, by fitting them into a consistent range of outcomes. HISD will compare each teacher’s student outcome data with the outcome data of other teachers in the same group, then assign performance ratings and corresponding points based on where the teacher falls in a predefined distribution of scores.
What community members are saying
The change to TES has evoked mixed reactions from the community. The school district’s parents and teachers expressed concerns about “stack ranking,” a methodology where employees are compared and ranked against each other, placing them along a bell curve, which they say “forces” teachers to compete against each other. The system is also known as “forced ranking” or “forced distribution,” categorizing employees into different performance levels.
HISD teacher MinhDan Tran told board members the pay-for-performance system does not work and schools “should not be treated like businesses.” Tran believes this forces teachers to compete with one another over working collaboratively.
“You didn’t get real input from teachers about this evaluation system,” Tran said, “Your fake survey didn’t give teachers any real choice. It was like choosing if we preferred to be eaten by sharks or electrocuted by a sinking boat. Bring back consultation with the union so that the professional teachers can have input on how we teach our kids.”
Rocha, however, said the current system does not allocate points for collaboration either.
“I don’t fully understand the collaboration versus competition,” she said. “We went to the community, teachers and leaders, and asked, ‘Hey, what needs to be better about T-TES? One of the things we heard was, ‘let’s give credit for collaboration,’ which is why we added the campus action plan with five percentage points.”
Houston Education Association, a teachers’ union, echoed this sentiment. In January, HEA president Michelle Williams advocated against the pay-for-performance system by launching a “Fair Pay Campaign,” urging the board of managers to vote no on the policy.
While some teachers spoke against the system, others supported it.
“I’m optimistic about the new Houston ISD teacher evaluation system. While change is never without challenges, this initiative represents a significant step forward in ensuring educational excellence. The proposed model prioritizes student success and empowers teachers to improve their skills by focusing on real-time feedback and professional development,” wrote Monica Hill, an HISD Secondary science teacher.
