How Some Texas Teachers Are Earning Six Figures — Without Leaving the Classroom

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Ask teachers how much their pay matters, and they often shy away from a direct answer, feeling ashamed to admit they do their job for anything beyond a sheer love of helping students.

District leaders more openly acknowledge the importance of compensation, especially for teachers who must work a second job to make ends meet, and in regions that struggle to hire and retain educators.

But they can do more than just help their educators escape a two-job grind. In Texas, one district has made it possible for teachers to earn six-figure salaries without leaving the classroom — and without having to wait for decades.

Every state and district should make this their teachers’ reality.

How is it happening? Take a look at Midland Independent School District, in the Permian Basin. 

First, the district created teams headed by teacher-leaders, following the Opportunity Culture Multi-Classroom Leader model provided by my employer, Public Impact. Participating districts around the country offer educators with records of strong student learning growth and the ability to lead adults the chance to fill these roles, reaching more students as they continue to teach while guiding small groups of colleagues to attain similar results.

Each team typically has four or five classroom teachers and a specially trained paraprofessional who supports them, especially by focusing on small-group tutoring. The leaders have dedicated time each week for observing and coaching the team, co-teaching, modeling instruction, and leading planning and data analysis. They are accountable for the results of all students taught by members of the team. For all this, they receive a pay supplement that in 2023-24 averaged $13,500 nationally and reached as high as $25,000. The supplements are funded by reallocations of regular budgets, making them sustainable.

Team leaders repeatedly call this combination of teaching plus leadership the best of both worlds, seeing an immediate impact from providing targeted, on-the-job support and feedback to a manageable number of people.

In Midland, the district goes a step further by adding state incentive funding to the mix. Texas districts can receive annual state Teacher Incentive Allotments, based on how many of their educators the state designates as outstanding. Districts distribute those dollars, using locally designed criteria, to high-performing teachers — from $3,000 to $32,000 apiece.

With Midland educators a dozen or so years into their career already earning well above $60,000 a year, 37 team leaders reached the six-figure mark in 2024-25 after adding in stipends of $17,000 or more and state incentive allotments. And in February, the district received notification of 77 more teachers designated as outstanding, many of them already on multi-classroom teams.

The combination of a leadership role and higher pay can be disruptive — in a good way. Since the Opportunity Culture initiative began over a decade ago, principals have repeatedly told me that if the program had existed when they were teaching, they would never have left the classroom. One even confessed to planning to step back from the principalship and become a team leader, returning to direct work with students — the reason most educators choose their career in the first place.

In fact, Midland officials now have to consider how teacher-leader pay is affecting the ranks of assistant principals, as becoming an AP can mean a pay cut. But that is by design, and more of the district’s teachers are staying in the classroom rather than moving up the administrative ranks.

At the same time, the district is seeing improved recruitment and retention, because educators earning higher pay feel valued. The program could well create an opportunity to attract people to teaching who might not have otherwise thought about a career in education.

And unlike typical grant-funded supplements or bonuses, teachers can trust that this higher pay has been designed to last. 

In the end, the math adds up to a sweet sum: Great educators + higher pay = supported and satisfied teachers + strong learning results. It’s something all teachers and students deserve, and that all states and districts should provide.

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