Estimated Time to Read: 6 minutes
The Legislative Budget Board’s School Performance Review: Teacher Retention Strategies in Texas School Districts (June 2025) lays bare a sobering reality: Texas has a teacher turnover crisis. Nearly 78 percent of educators reported considering leaving the classroom in the past year, while attrition hit a record 13.4 percent in 2022–23. By 2023–24, turnover across districts reached 21.4 percent.
These numbers translate into real costs. Constant rehiring and retraining drain district budgets, weaken classroom stability, and hurt student learning. From a liberty-principle perspective, this matters because ineffective retention strategies are not just bad for teachers and kids; they are fiscally wasteful. Taxpayer dollars should fund approaches that work, not bureaucratic programs that churn through employees year after year.
The LBB report categorizes the most effective retention practices into three areas: compensation, training and support, and school culture. What stands out is that the most promising initiatives are not necessarily the most expensive. Instead, they are the ones that align with cost-effectiveness, accountability, and local flexibility, values consistent with limited government and responsible stewardship of public funds.
Compensation Strategies: Balancing Fair Pay with Fiscal Responsibility
The report makes clear that compensation is the single most important factor influencing teacher retention. Districts that successfully retained teachers often went beyond the state minimum salary schedule, benchmarking against neighboring districts and adjusting their pay structures. Plains ISD, for instance, restructured step increases to ensure that veteran teachers felt valued, while Cotulla ISD used sign-on bonuses of up to $22,000 to attract new hires without permanently inflating the salary base.
The Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) also played a significant role in rewarding high-performing teachers, particularly in high-need or rural schools. Districts like Calhoun County ISD and Memphis ISD reported filling positions that had previously been impossible to staff. Importantly, this approach tied compensation to measurable effectiveness, ensuring that taxpayer funds followed performance rather than simply expanding payrolls.
Other districts addressed cost-of-living issues more directly, offering affordable housing and childcare to make employment feasible. Ector County ISD built apartment buildings for international teachers, while Cameron ISD repurposed classrooms into childcare facilities. These programs reduced financial stress on staff and boosted retention.
It is worth underscoring here: supporting competitive, fair teacher compensation is appropriate. The problem is that Texas has seen decades of skyrocketing education budgets, explosive administrative growth, and billions in new spending, all while student outcomes have remained largely stagnant or declined in areas around the state. Simply pouring more money into the system without accountability is not a solution. What this report shows is that retention improves when compensation strategies are focused, targeted, and locally responsive, not when dollars are absorbed into a growing bureaucracy with little to show for it.
Training and Support Strategies: Building Skills Instead of Burning Out
The LBB report emphasizes that teacher turnover is especially acute among novices. First-year teachers left the classroom at a rate approaching 29 percent. Successful districts recognized this and invested in structured support systems. Plains ISD used instructional coaching and peer observation, while Memphis ISD built a New Teacher Academy that emphasized classroom management and lesson delivery. Freer ISD also created a structured academy for teachers in their first three years, covering both professional skills and day-to-day classroom realities.
Mentorship programs were another effective tool, with about 80 percent of surveyed districts reporting some form of structured mentorship. Rice ISD tied its program to measurable goals and observation cycles, while Freer ISD provided stipends and training for mentors to ensure quality. Both districts emphasized that careful selection of mentors was crucial to avoid perpetuating ineffective practices.
Residency programs, like the one in Clint ISD partnered with the University of Texas at El Paso, gave aspiring teachers a year of hands-on experience under close supervision. These residents were better prepared for their first full year in the classroom and more likely to stay.
These strategies are cost-effective in that they maximize existing human capital. Rather than spending more on administrative programs or redundant layers of oversight, they channel resources into professional development that directly benefits students and reduces turnover costs.
School Culture Strategies: Autonomy, Trust, and Smarter Scheduling
The third category in the report highlights the role of culture. Teachers are far more likely to remain when they feel respected, supported, and trusted. Districts that established structured feedback systems saw clear improvements in retention. Smaller districts like Kress ISD relied on informal but regular conversations between superintendents and teachers, while larger ones like Ector County ISD created advisory councils and anonymous survey systems to ensure candid input.
Another decisive strategy was increasing planning time. Teachers repeatedly cited excessive workloads as a reason for leaving the profession. Rice ISD adopted a four-day instructional week, leaving Mondays for planning, professional development, and collaboration. The results were striking: turnover fell from 33.6 percent to just 12 percent in three years. Importantly, the district did not balloon its budget to make this happen. Longer class periods and operational efficiencies offset costs, demonstrating that reform does not have to mean higher spending.
This is a liberty principle in action: empowering teachers with greater autonomy and balance, while resisting the bureaucratic instinct to pile on new programs. When school culture is built around trust, accountability, and transparency, teachers stay, and taxpayers get better returns.
Conclusion: Smarter Spending, Not Endless Spending
The LBB’s 2025 school performance review makes one thing clear: Texas can address teacher retention without falling into the trap of endless spending. Fair pay, targeted stipends, affordable housing, and childcare are practical measures that help teachers. Mentorship, coaching, and residency programs equip educators with the tools to succeed. School cultures built on transparency and trust reduce burnout and foster stability.
Supporting appropriate teacher compensation is necessary, but it must be paired with accountability and cost-effectiveness. For too long, Texas has seen education budgets explode while student results remain stagnant. Billions in new spending and an ever-growing layer of administrative bureaucracy have failed to fix the problem. Throwing more money at a broken system is not reform; it is waste.
True reform comes from strategies that respect liberty principles: limited government, efficient use of resources, accountability for outcomes, and empowering teachers at the classroom level. If lawmakers and districts adopt these lessons, Texas can both honor its educators and ensure that taxpayer dollars are used wisely, not squandered on bureaucratic bloat.
Policy Implications for Texas Lawmakers
The LBB’s findings should serve as a guide for state leaders. The Legislature should avoid the temptation to treat teacher retention as a problem solved by ever-expanding budgets. Instead, lawmakers can encourage reforms that reward performance, reduce bureaucratic waste, and empower local districts to innovate. Programs like the Teacher Incentive Allotment prove that when compensation is tied to results, retention improves. Adjustments to school calendars, such as four-day weeks, demonstrate that districts can achieve meaningful change without added costs.
The real policy challenge is restraining the growth of administrative overhead and ensuring that dollars flow to classrooms, not central offices. Texas cannot afford another decade of higher spending paired with stagnant student outcomes. By applying liberty principles to education policy, prioritizing accountability, efficiency, and local control, the Legislature can promote reforms that are both cost-effective and genuinely transformative.
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