The Texas Education Agency and the Teacher Incentive Allotment
The Texas Teacher Incentive Allotment TIA is a part of House Bill 3. The Texas legislature wants to have a realistic path to compensate the highest performing teachers at a higher annual salary. School districts in Texas must submit a Teacher Incentive Allotment application that meets the established eligibility criteria in order to have teachers participate in the TIA Program. Edcouch-Elsa ISD has been a participant in the TIA program since 2023.
Teacher Incentive Allotment Eligibility Criteria
The TEA TIA Application Program requires that school districts establish criteria to ensure that the identification of highly effective teachers falls under the three designation categories – Recognized, Exemplary, and Master. (Note: For teachers designated during the 2026-2027 year, the state has added an additional level of Acknowledged.) Districts submit an application to TEA and are expected to use an indicator for student academic growth performance data along with Texas-Teacher Evaluation Support System observation data to determine which teachers qualify for these three designations. Part of the data validation process will include a review of the accuracy of how district systems align their designations to the statewide performance standards. The Texas Education Agency has additional information on the Teacher Incentive Allotment on the tiatexas.org website.
As of August 2026, nearly 30% of eligible teachers in the district have received one of the designations through the Teacher Incentive Allotment. That equals more than 80 teachers in our district who are recognized by TEA for their outstanding work with our students.
There are 35 teachers at the Recognized level, 35 at the Exemplary level and 11 Master teachers!
