Ryan Walters' $150 million teacher incentive pay plan advances to Legislature

A $150 million performance-based teacher pay raise plan from new state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters will advance to the Oklahoma Legislature, and so will a $100 million proposal to invest in reading instruction.

The Oklahoma State Board of Education, with three new voting members sworn in, approved Walters' budget request on Thursday for the 2024 fiscal year. The requests will continue to the Legislature, which has the final say on state funding of education.

Walters' budget plan differs from the version his predecessor, Joy Hofmeister, put together. The new superintendent nixed Hofmeister's proposed $5,000 across-the-board teacher pay raise, which would have cost nearly $310 million.

Instead, he suggested the state spend $150 million to offer incentive pay raises for teachers who are highly rated based on their students' performance, classroom practices and time spent in professional development, such as achieving National Board Certification.

Raises would range from $2,500 to $10,000 on top of the state's minimum salary schedule, Walters said. He did not say what student performance measures would be used as evaluating tools, nor how school districts would be expected to implement the program.

"We believe that we have to find ways to find teachers who are doing a great job, No. 1, but also incentivize them as they continue to grow," Walters said. "We have to keep these teachers."

A new state law offers matching funds to cover half of a pay raise for teachers who earn certain credentials and mentor their colleagues, but it's unclear whether the criteria to earn an incentive raise would meet the same qualifications for matching funds from the 2022 law.

Some state lawmakers have suggested pay raises for all teachers. The leader of the Senate Education Committee, Sen. Adam Pugh, R-Edmond, filed Senate Bill 482 to increase minimum salaries by $3,000 for teachers with under 15 years of experience and by $6,000 for educators with a 15-year career or longer.

The state's largest teachers union, the Oklahoma Education Association, said educator salaries should be competitive with the rest of the region.

"The metrics used to determine merit-based pay are controversial and inequitable," OEA President Katherine Bishop said. "Our students deserve educators who are compensated and respected as the professionals they are. Previous pay raises for all educators have proven to increase quality candidates to the profession."

Oklahoma teachers earn an average of $54,000 a year, which ranks fourth among all bordering states. The state last increased minimum teacher pay in 2019 with a $1,200 raise, added on top of the $6,100 boost approved in 2018.

A chronic teacher shortage persists in Oklahoma. Between 4,200 and 5,300 teachers left the classroom each year from the 2012-2013 school year to 2020-21, according to a 2021 report from the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

“I know that the Legislature wants to see high outcomes for students, and certainly the Legislature understands that we have to make a priority with kids and their education,” Hofmeister said after the state board in September agreed to pass her $5,000 raise request to lawmakers. “That means ensuring we’ve got the people and that investment in the (teacher) workforce.”

The state Board of Education on Thursday approved an overall budget request of $3.51 billion for the state Education Department, lower than Hofmeister's ask of $3.57 billion. The vast majority of those funds would pass through the agency to public schools.

The $3.51 billion request would increase state education funding by about $330 million over current levels.

Part of the increase, should lawmakers give the OK, would include a $100 million investment in kindergarten through third-grade literacy. After third grade, students without a strong grasp of reading are known to struggle to comprehend classwork.

Walters called the $100 million proposal the "most comprehensive reading plan in the country," though the specifics of each initiative within it are still hazy. He said it would put money toward reading materials, tutoring in the science of reading, dyslexia intervention grants, and hiring high school and college students to assist in schools.

"If we don't get this part right ... it gets progressively more difficult when students can't read at the later levels," Walters said.

The new state superintendent will present his budget request to House and Senate lawmakers in the following weeks. The 2023 legislative session begins Feb. 6.

Some House lawmakers were angry when Walters presented Hofmeister's budget request, not his own, in a hearing at the Capitol on Tuesday. House legal staff instructed Walters to present his predecessor's budget plan, which he promised to change, because the state Board of Education hadn't yet approved an amendment to it.

“Hopefully (the next meeting is about) numbers because I am not a policy guy. That’s not my job. I want to see the numbers,” said Rep. Mark McBride, R-Moore, chairperson of the House budget committee on education. “We need to put more money into the (education funding) formula. We need to pay teachers more.”

Reporter Nuria Martinez-Keel covers K-12 and higher education throughout the state of Oklahoma. Have a story idea for Nuria? She can be reached at nmartinez-keel@oklahoman.com or on Twitter at @NuriaMKeel. Support Nuria’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Ryan Walters nixes $5,000 teacher raise while his budget advances