Patrick’s teacher raise idea didn’t supply money

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says in a campaign video posted in advance of the March primary that he has championed a big bump in teacher pay.

The Houston Republican, who seeks a second term as lieutenant governor, says: “Last year, I proposed directing more of the education budget to teacher salaries, a move that would have resulted in an average $10,000 raise for teachers.”

That’d be quite the bump; the state’s 2017-18 salary schedule for teachers runs from $28,080 for starting teachers to $45,510 for a teacher with 20 years of experience.

We checked whether Patrick, who presides over the Texas Senate, offered the described proposal, ultimately finding that he talked up a desire to tell local school districts to spend money differently but didn’t make a proposal affecting state spending overseen by lawmakers. Also, Patrick’s district-specific mandate didn’t make it into a legislative proposal.

Patrick made a 34-minute presentation to reporters in July 2017 about legislation he expected the Republican-controlled Senate to advance during a 30-day special session called by Gov. Greg Abbott, who had said the month before that he would seek action to raise teacher salaries by $1,000 each, an idea that didn’t pass into law.

Patrick called for lawmakers to direct school districts to shift more budgeted funds to teacher salaries.

“I want the school districts, one of my goals, and it needs to be the goal of the Legislature to direct this,” to “increase the amount of money they’re spending by 5 percent over the next four years on teachers,” Patrick said. That move, he said, would drive up the state’s average teacher salary from more than $51,000 to $60,000.

“Many teachers will make much more, some will make less,” Patrick said. “But they all would get about an $8,000 increase if we just take 5 percentof themoney that schools are getting. Remember, there’s a lot of room here, there’s a lot of room here. The dollars are in the system.”

Patrickcontinued: “Now some will say, well, that’s an unfunded mandate. That’s not true. That’s