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Teacher Incentive Allotment Information
Teacher Incentive Allotment Information
What Is the Teacher Incentive Allotment?
HB 3 established the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) to recognize effective teachers on three different levels: Recognized, Exemplary and Master. These teacher designations generate additional teacher-focused allotment funding for districts in order for them to reward their top performers. Effective beginning the school year 2025-26, a fourth level of designation Acknowledged is expanding the allotment realm, and data collection begins.
Using statewide teacher performance data, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) established objective performance standards to serve as guidelines for districts when evaluating teacher effectiveness and setting designation criteria.These performance standards are based on statewide percentages: Acknowledged represents the top 50% of Texas teachers, Recognized the top 33%, Exemplary the top 20%, and Master the top 5%.
What Is a Designation?
Teacher designations generate additional teacher-focused allotment funding for districts to reward and retain their most effective teachers. Teachers earn designations through two different routes. First, National Board Certified teachers are eligible to earn a Recognized designation. Second, districts may designate their effective teachers when they are approved for a local teacher designation system. The approval process is multi-step and includes the submission of a system application to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and then a data validation process through Texas Tech University.
Who Can Be Designated?
Any number of teachers may be put forth for designation under a local designation system if they meet the district’s designation criteria and the eligibility requirements under the rules defined by the Texas Education Agency (TEA). TEA does not cap or limit the number of designations a district may issue. Currently, Gatesville ISD designation areas are the junior high and high school and include 7th grade math, 7th grade science, 7th grade ELAR, 8th grade math, 8th grade science, high school Algebra I, English I, English II, Biology, and high school US History.
Teachers with an active National Board Certification may automatically be designated as Recognized if they meet the eligibility requirements under the rules defined by TEA.
How the Teacher Incentive Allotment Works
Districts can develop a local designation system and designate high-performing teachers (Master, Exemplary, or Recognized).
TEA will approve local designation systems, in partnership with Texas Tech University.
Districts are not required to create a local designation system. All Texas school systems can employ designated teachers and receive allotment funds.
Districts will receive additional funding ($3–32K per year) for every designated teacher they employ. Gatesville campus allotment values for 25-26 will be updated in April 2026.
Districts will receive greater funding for designated teachers who teach at rural and/or high-needs campuses.
At least 90% of TIA funds must be used on teacher compensation on the campus where the designated teacher(s) works.
Local Designation System Requirements
House Bill 3 provides districts with local control and flexibility in choosing how to evaluate teachers and assign designations. Developing a local teacher designation system requires significant planning, robust stakeholder engagement, adequate time to prepare all necessary materials for rollout and a strong communication plan prior to the first implementation year. Once a local designation system is approved, districts may recommend their effective teachers for designation. There is no limit to the number of teachers that a district may designate as long as their teachers meet the district’s designation criteria and the eligibility requirements under the rules defined by TEA.
At minimum, the designation system must include both a teacher observation and a student performance component:
- Teacher observation based on T-TESS; a third-party rubric, such as the NIET TAP, Marzano, or Danielson rubric. A district’s application must show evidence of validity and reliability. Gatesville uses the Domains 2 and 3 of the T-TESS rubric for teacher observation.
- Student growth measures determined by district. Can include pre- and post-tests, value-added measures, student learning objectives (SLOs), and portfolios. A district’s application must show evidence of validity and reliability.
The systems must be submitted to TEA for approval and undergo a data-validation process, which will be conducted by Texas Tech University. As part of the validation process, Texas Tech will:
- Review alignment between teacher observation ratings and student performance ratings.
- Review alignment between student performance ratings and value-added ratings for applicable teachers.
- Review data validity by appraiser/rater, by campus, across campuses in a district, and by teaching assignment.
- Compare district data to state data by comparing the percentage of teachers a district puts forth for designation to overall district performance.