In a bid to improve teacher performance, the Houston Independent School District has introduced a new teacher evaluation system.
Thursday, the Houston ISD Board of Managers voted to implement the Teacher Excellence System with the stated goal of retaining effective and successful teachers.
The TES will categorize teachers based on their performance, aiming to ensure that every group across grades and subjects maintains a balanced distribution of evaluations.
Teachers will be assigned to one of seven categories based on their performance.
These categories, and their target distributions, are: 3 percent in the Unsatisfactory Evaluation Level, 12 percent in Progressing I, 25 percent in Progressing II, 40 percent in Proficient I, 12 percent in Proficient II, 5 percent in Exemplary I, and 3 percent in Exemplary II.
The system is structured around four weighted components: Quality of Instruction (45 percent), Student Academic Outcomes (35 percent), Planning and Professionalism (15 percent), and Campus Action Plan (5 percent).
Quality of Instruction focuses on real-time classroom observations. According to the system’s guidebook, each teacher will be observed at least once per month, which will contribute to their final end-of-year score. These observations rely on a range of factors to assess a teacher’s performance. To ensure consistency and objectivity, only evaluators who have completed a rigorous TES certification process will conduct the observations.
Student Academic Outcomes analyzes students’ academic performance using two primary metrics: growth and absolute achievement. Absolute achievement is measured by students’ performance on exams and standardized tests, while growth is calculated by comparing a student’s performance over time.
Various standardized tests, such as STAAR, CIRCLE, and NWEA MAP, are used to gauge these outcomes.
Planning and Professionalism evaluates teachers’ ability to plan curriculum, foster a positive classroom culture, and meet professional expectations. The rubric for this category assesses whether teachers effectively meet lesson objectives, align with state standards, plan for student misunderstandings, reflect on past lessons to improve, contribute to school culture, and adhere to attendance and deadline requirements. It also includes expectations for professional conduct and behavior outlined in the guidebook.
The Campus Action Plan measures individual teachers’ impact on overall school performance. This component ensures that teachers collaborate to enhance academic success across all grades and subjects and contribute to overall school culture beyond their individual classrooms.
This new system coincides with Houston ISD’s move toward a teacher pay-for-performance model.
According to district presentations, teachers’ salaries will be linked to their evaluation scores. The proposed pay scale is: $62,000 for Unsatisfactory, $67,000 for Progressing I, $70,000 for Progressing II, $78,000 for Proficient I, $84,000 for Proficient II, $88,000 for Exemplary I, and $92,000 for Exemplary II.
A Houston ISD spokesperson said that “HISD will move to a pay-for-performance model for teachers at non-NES campuses in the 2026-2027 school year.”
