How to Maximize Your School’s Texas Teacher Incentive Allotment

In 2019, the Texas State Legislature passed House Bill 3, resulting in a massive potential increase in the level of compensation that quality teachers can receive. This new Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) promises to more effectively reward high-performing teachers and incentivize them to stay in teaching, and in Texas.

Since its launch, TIA has grown significantly. In the 2024–2025 school year alone, more than $481 million in TIA funds were awarded to over 42,000 designated Texas teachers. And in June 2025, Governor Abbott signed House Bill 2 (HB 2), which expands TIA even further by adding a new designation level, increasing allotment amounts, and creating the “Enhanced TIA” program for districts with advanced strategic compensation systems.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Teacher Incentive Allotment, how it impacts educators and school districts across the state, and how you can use it as an educator or district leader in Texas, but first, what’s at stake with the TIA? How do you know what you need to maximize your district’s TIA funds?

Why Is Having a TIA Solution Important?

Getting the most out of TIA starts with having the right platform that doesn’t just help you increase funds, it also makes the entire process easier, which is exactly what Progress Learning does in three specific ways:

• TIA-ready student growth data, out of the box. Our TEKS-aligned BOY/EOY assessments come with the reporting TIA demands — including growth reports by specific TEKS, item analysis you can compare across your entire district, assessment comparison reports, and much more. No extra setup, no gluing together data from five different places.
• Keep your best teachers. TIA designations put real money in your teachers’ pockets — and teachers who feel valued stay. That means fewer costly hiring cycles and more consistency in the classrooms where it matters most.
• One cost effective solution. Progress Learning covers all four core subjects across K–12 with formative and summative assessments, practice, comprehensive reporting, and a lot more — all bundled together. Our per-campus pricing makes it especially easy for whole-district adoption, plus we’re approved through IMRA so you can use dedicated funding, and there are no extra fees just to let you export your own data.

To explore exactly how Progress Learning can support your TIA process, get in touch here.

What Is the Teacher Incentive Allotment?

• The Teacher Incentive Allotment is designed to provide Texas with the funds to reward, retain, and recruit highly effective teachers. Essentially, it’s a new method by which districts can create compensation plans based around the effectiveness of teachers.
• The stated purpose of the model is to create a path so that the best-performing teachers are able to earn as much as a six-figure salary, reducing the desire for these excellent teachers to leave teaching for more lucrative career paths.
• HB3 was inspired by other state and nationwide incentive programs that have been proven successful at helping retain high-performing teachers. It recognizes effective teachers on a scale with four different levels (expanded from 3 original levels) with corresponding increases in compensation: Acknowledged, Recognized, Exemplary, and Master.
• When a teacher reaches one of these designations, their district is allotted additional funding in order to reward them with increased compensation.

How the Teacher Incentive Allotment Works

The state is leaving the development of designation systems to the individual districts, allowing them to develop their own system and assign high-performing teachers with the designation of Master, Exemplary, Recognized, or Acknowledged. The TEA then approves these local designation systems as part of a partnership with Texas Tech University. 

It’s important to note that districts are not required to develop their own local designation system. The Teacher Incentive Allotment website states that “all Texas school systems can employ designated teachers and receive allotment funds.”

Districts receive additional funding ranging from $3K to $36K per year for each designated teacher employed in that district.

• Acknowledged: $3,000 – $9,000
• Recognized: Up to $15,000
• Exemplary: Up to $25,000
• Master: Up to $36,000

There is an emphasis on educators who teach at rural or high-need campuses, encouraging high-performing teachers to remain at these schools. The state has designated that at least 90% of all TIA funds must be used on teacher compensation at the campus where the teacher works.

Designations Explained

The four-tiered design of the designation program includes, from lowest to highest, Acknowledged, Recognized, Exemplary, and Master.

The Acknowledged designation was added by HB 2 in 2025 and is aimed at teachers performing in the top 50% statewide. It allows districts to recognize a broader pool of effective educators, particularly those who are earlier in their careers or newer to the TIA system. Allotments for Acknowledged teachers range from $3,000 to $9,000 depending on campus socioeconomic and rural factors.

TEA has established objective performance standards tied to statewide percentages: Acknowledged represents the top 50% of Texas teachers, Recognized the top 33%, Exemplary the top 20%, and Master the top 5%. Actual designation rates at a given campus or district may differ depending on local criteria and teacher performance.

Teachers who are National Board Certified are currently eligible to receive Recognized designation through the 2025–2026 school year. Beginning in 2026–2027, National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) transition to a new “Nationally Board Certified” designation under HB 2, with allotments aligned to the Acknowledged level ($3,000–$9,000). SBEC is required to review and reauthorize or revoke National Board Certification as a TIA pathway by December 31, 2026.

In order to designate teachers beyond the Acknowledged or Recognized status, or to recognize teachers who are not eligible through National Board Certification, districts are able to create their own local designation systems. The process for approving these local designation systems feature multiple steps including an application to the Texas Education Agency and a data validation process conducted in partnership with Texas Tech University.

Funding correspond to the level of designation — the higher the designation, the greater the increase in funding allotment and teacher pay.

How to Get TIA Funds

There are three primary ways that teachers can generate TIA funding — through a local teacher designation system, a national board certification of teachers, or (new under HB 2) through the Enhanced TIA program.

Local Teacher Designation System

HB3 was written to provide a great degree of local control and flexibility when it comes to choosing how teachers are evaluated and assigned specific designations. 

The official website page about local designation system requirements adds:

“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.” 

At a minimum, a district’s designation system must include a combination of teacher observations and student performance assessments. 

Teachers must be observed based on an approved rubric, student growth measures must include tests and value-added measures, and districts are also permitted to use other factors such as student surveys, leadership responsibilities, mentorship responsibilities, family surveys, demonstration of core values, and teacher peer surveys.

National Board Certification

Teachers who wish to obtain a Nationally Board Certified designation can also do so by becoming a National Board Certified Teacher (NBCT). To be eligible, the teacher must be listed as a Texas teacher in the NBCT directory, be employed by a Texas school district or public charter, hold an active National Board certificate, and complete a creditable year of service in order to generate funding for that year.

Enhanced TIA (New Under HB 2)

HB 2 created the Enhanced TIA designation, a district-level recognition for school systems that go beyond standard TIA requirements. To qualify, districts must have a fully approved local designation system that covers all teacher types and must replace traditional step-and-ladder pay scales with compensation plans based on teacher performance. Districts must also develop performance-based evaluation systems for principals and assistant principals.

Districts that earn Enhanced TIA designation receive a 10% increase in their total annual TIA allotment. They also gain the option to use Teacher Retention Allotment (TRA) funds for performance-based raises tied to TIA structures, rather than distributing TRA funds based on years of service.

How to Maximize Your School or District’s TIA

Wondering how to maximize your school or district’s TIA, boost your teacher’s compensation, and improve student success? One school district, Anthony Independent School District, is doing just that with the help of Progress Learning.

Like many small districts in Texas, Anthony ISD struggled with limited administrative bandwidth and resources. These constraints made it challenging to effectively manage and report on teacher performance and student progress. This meant that many teachers, despite their potential and performance, were at risk of not qualifying for the TIA program simply because the district couldn’t adequately assess and document their effectiveness.

Progress Learning provides a solution. Anthony ISD uses Progress Learning to create district-level assessments at the beginning and end of the year, and then they use that data to determine qualifications for their teachers based on student progress and independent teacher evaluations. The reports some districts find useful for the TIA process are:

• Performance report to monitor growth based on specific TEKS
• Results report to show results on an assessment by domain, standard, or a specific class
• Assessment comparison report to directly compare how students did on multiple assessments
• Item analysis to drill down further into which items are giving students the most trouble across the district

This data and streamlined process has enabled Anthony ISD to include 85% of its teachers in the TIA program, a significant jump from the estimated 60% eligibility they would face without the aid of Progress Learning. The new Acknowledged tier may be able to bring up your district’s eligibility even further. A district wide solution like Progress Learning can help all teachers at once and make sure nobody is overlooked.

Properly compensating excellent teachers is an essential step in educating our children. Another essential step? Providing them with the resources to excel. At Progress Learning, we provide standards-aligned practice tools for English Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies that are trusted by teachers throughout Texas and across the nation. 

As of December 2025, Progress Learning is a program that meets the requirements of the Teacher Incentive Allotment, which means it can unlock additional funding for your district.

Interested in seeing how Progress Learning can support your school or district’s TIA efforts? Get in touch below to see the exact reporting that we provide which streamlines reporting for TIA.