Commit Partnership Celebrates Teacher Appreciation Week 2026 – Investing in Teachers Means Investing in Student Success

As Teacher Appreciation Week begins across Texas, classrooms are winding down from STAAR testing, districts are preparing for the end of the school year and education leaders are already planning for next fall.

This annual moment of appreciation is about more than coffee gift cards, handwritten notes and breakfast celebrations. It’s an opportunity to recognize a larger truth: supporting teachers requires sustained investment, strong preparation pathways, effective leadership and long-term strategies that help educators thrive in the classroom.

And while Texas is seeing encouraging signs of progress in teacher retention and compensation, significant workforce challenges remain.

‍Signs of Progress in Teacher Retention‍

After years of elevated turnover following the COVID-19 pandemic, recent statewide data suggests that teacher retention trends may be stabilizing.

Recent survey data shows that 66% of Texas teachers considered leaving the profession during the 2024–25 school year — still high, but down from 78% the prior year. In DFW, that number fell to 62%.

District-level data reflects similar improvement. Some Texas districts have reduced turnover rates by 5 to 10 percentage points year-over-year as investments in compensation, professional growth and educator support begin to take hold.

Teacher hiring trends are also improving. In 2025–26, Texas hired 44,145 teachers compared to 44,763 exits from the prior year — a gap of just 618 educators. That marks a significant improvement from the previous year, when teacher exits exceeded new hires by more than 4,600 positions statewide, leading to fewer position vacancies and a reduction of strain on campus leaders and teachers.

One of the biggest challenges continues to be retaining educators during their earliest years in the classroom. More than one-third of Texas teachers have fewer than five years of experience, and statewide retention data shows the steepest drop-off occurs during those early-career years.

Retention declines from roughly 90% after year one to approximately 55–56% by year five, underscoring the importance of strong preparation programs, mentorship, professional support, and sustainable compensation pathways for new educators entering the profession.

‍Compensation and Career Pathways Matter

One of the clearest themes emerging from teacher workforce data is that compensation matters — especially when paired with opportunities for growth and advancement.

Teacher salaries in Dallas County have increased by approximately $16,000, or 31%, since 2012 and now exceed the state average.

Texas’ Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) has also become an increasingly important tool for retaining highly effective educators.

Since 2019:

• More than 42,000 teachers have received TIA designations statewide
• Texas has invested more than $1 billion through the program
• Teachers participating in TIA are approximately 9 percentage points more likely to remain in the classroom, particularly during their early-career years

Recent updates to TIA are helping create clearer pathways for educators to increase earnings while continuing to serve students in classrooms across Texas.

At the same time, many districts and educator preparation programs are working to expand opportunities for teachers to pursue advanced degrees, certifications and continued professional learning — creating stronger long-term career pathways while helping educators move closer toward sustainable living wages.

‍Preparation and Certification Challenges Continue‍

Despite encouraging progress in retention and compensation, Texas continues to face significant educator pipeline challenges.

While more educators became certified in 2025–26 — approximately 2,000 more than the previous year — the state still faces a gap of roughly 27,000 teachers between newly certified educators and statewide hiring needs.

Preparation and certification gaps also remain concentrated in key areas of the workforce, particularly among early-career educators and high-need teaching assignments.

In 2025–26:

• Approximately 11.9% of Texas teachers were uncertified
• High school Career and Technical Education (CTE) classrooms had the highest concentration of uncertified teachers at 23.2%
• Core elementary classrooms accounted for roughly 41,000 uncertified teachers statewide due to the sheer scale of hiring needs

Data also shows that certification strongly correlates with teacher retention:

• Approximately 63% of certified teachers remain in classrooms after five years
• Only 39% of uncertified teachers remain by year five

Research and statewide trend data also suggest that higher concentrations of uncertified teachers are associated with lower student performance outcomes.

To address these challenges, districts across Texas are increasingly investing in mentorship programs, teacher residency and Grow Your Own models, and structured certification support designed to help educators successfully enter and remain in the profession. HB2’s PREP Allotment strengthens this work by providing targeted funding for districts and partners to build and sustain these pipelines from recruitment through early career support.

Leadership Stability Matters Too

Teacher retention is not only influenced by classroom conditions. School leadership stability also plays a significant role in educator support and student outcomes.

In 2025–26:

• Teacher attrition statewide was 12.08%
• Principal attrition reached 18.7%
• Superintendent attrition reached 14.55%

These trends highlight the importance of investing not only in teachers, but also in the school leaders responsible for building strong instructional environments and workplace conditions that support educator success.

Supporting Teachers Is a Long-Term Commitment

Teacher Appreciation Week provides an important opportunity to celebrate the educators who shape the lives of students every day. But it also serves as a reminder that appreciation alone is not enough.

Strong schools depend on strong educators. And strong educator pipelines require:

• competitive compensation,
• effective preparation pathways,
• leadership stability,
• ongoing professional growth
• and sustained investment in the teaching profession.

As Texas schools close out another academic year and prepare for the next, the conversation around teacher retention, workforce sustainability and student success is likely to remain one of the most important education issues facing the state.

Additional educator workforce data and district trends can be explored through Commit Partnership’s Teacher Summary Dashboard and Commit Partnership’s Student-to-Teacher Ratio Dashboard.

For more information about Texas’s Teacher Incentive Allotment program, visit TIA Texas.