2025-2026 Texas Strategic Compensation for ESCs Grant (TSCEG)

The 2025-2026 Texas Strategic Compensation for ESCs Grant aims to enhance teacher and principal retention by promoting strategic compensation systems. This initiative will support Educational Service Centers in implementing effective compensation strategies aligned with the Teacher Incentive Allotment. The grant focuses on hiring Regional Assistant Superintendents of Talent to work directly with school systems, ensuring a shift from traditional pay structures to performance-based compensation models. The goal is to increase the talent pool and improve educational outcomes.

Program Purpose, Goals, and Objectives Purpose:

• Purpose:

TEA’s Strategic Priority 1 is to Recruit, Support, and Retain Teachers and Principals. Achieving this priority entails supporting school systems in developing and implementing strategic compensation systems utilizing funds obtained through participation in the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) as well as local school systems dollars. The 2025-2026 Texas Strategic Compensation for ESCs Grant (TSCEG) seeks to engage Educational Service Centers (ESC) to provide direct on-going support to school systems as they replace a compensation system based on cost-of-living increases with a system that supports and rewards principals, assistant principals, and teachers who demonstrate effective teaching practices that result in increased student achievement.
Specifically, this grant entails hiring a Regional Assistant Superintendent of Talent (RAST) at the ESC level and engaging with a TIA approved Technical Assistance Provider. The RAST will spend a minimum of 80% of each week engaged directly on-site with the identified school system(s) supporting the development of a strategic compensation system, implementation of the TIA, and engaging with the school system around other state objectives developed to increase educator retention and recruitment. The RAST will spend the remaining 20% of each week engaged with the Education Service Center building capacity to support strategic compensation systems and TIA in school systems across the region with an emphasis on supporting other school systems in adopting and amending their TIA spending plans in preparation for Enhanced TIA.
Goal:
100% of targeted school systems will utilize stakeholders to develop and implement a strategic compensation system that will increase the existing talent pool and increase retention of their instructional teams as follows:
Develop and adopt a refined principal and assistant principal strategic compensation system consistent with the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) approach.Develop and adopt a TIA-compliant teacher strategic compensation system for substantially all teacher types.Abandon a step and ladder pay scale for principals and teachers to a salary schedule based on performance.Blend TIA and other funding sources to ensure financial sustainability.Adopt an approach to teacher assignment based on student need.
Objectives:
To increase capacity in ESCs to support strategic compensation systems and TIA.To support identified school systems as they transition from a traditional compensation system to a robust strategic compensation system based on teacher and instructional leader effectiveness.