Making quality accessible: how Houston teacher pathways are responding to new HB2 funding, part II

This two-part series examines the implementation progress of the PREP allotment in House Bill 2 (2025), Texas’ historic $8.2 billion investment in public education, in the complex Houston education system. In Part I, we explored Houston’s crowded teacher-preparation landscape and the goals and aspirations of HB2’s PREP Allotment.

HB2’s PREP Allotment is beginning to make early gains among teacher pathways in Houston. Its financial and partnership incentives are helping programs sustain paid, practice-based preparation and respond to workforce needs. At the same time, implementation has been a huge challenge, not just for specific types of pathways, but across pathways.

Sam Houston State University is adapting an already-robust system that serves a large number of candidates and district partners. Lone Star College is designing a new bachelor’s pathway in partnership with districts and in response to workforce needs. Houston ISD is trying to align and scale multiple in-house and external preparation routes across the largest district in Texas and one of the largest in the United States.

We take a deeper look at what’s working and what’s been hard.

What’s working: financial sustainability and new investments in EPP-K12 partnerships

At Sam Houston State University, HB2 is helping reinforce and sustain work that started years ago. The state’s oldest EPP already has year-long paid clinical experiences with more than 20 districts and partnerships with over 50. Because SHSU had been engaged in this work for nearly a decade, the university was able to shift beyond its own residency components and help district partners navigate implementation alongside them.

Angie Taylor, director of innovative partnerships at SHSU, reflected that the enhanced residency program Texas included in HB2 is based on the work accomplished by SHSU and many other programs:

HB2 is learning from and supporting what’s already working in EPPs by creating a recurring state entitlement, which means that local education agencies and EPPs don’t need to apply for it but can rely on the funding to exist year over year. This fall, SHSU expects about 96% of its students to participate in residencies.

The pay makes a huge difference for Amber Netek, an aspiring teacher in Houston: “I feel like because I’m paid, I’m able to be more focused on my role here,” she said. “I don’t have to worry as much about those other added things outside of being here.”

At Houston ISD, which serves as both the employer and operates its own EPPs through a paid residency, Grow Your Own pathway, and internal alternative-certification program, HB2’s incentives will support them to expand existing infrastructure.

“We already had a residency program in place and a Grow Your Own program in place before PREP Allotment came out,” said Wendy Nash, the district’s director of teacher pathways. “But it is allowing us to scale…It is getting back to the district some of the funding and support for FTEs for our teachers, our teacher residents.” Nash also appreciates the added financial benefits for costs outside of the workday: “[Candidates] can, based on their needs, unlock some additional funding that supports anything from transportation to childcare to interview clothes.”

For Elizabell Garcia, senior executive director of teacher pipeline at Houston ISD, the financial benefit has a personal connection: “I had to deny a full scholarship to becoming a teacher because I had to work full-time and I couldn’t be in the classroom as a teacher resident. So I know how important it is to create these opportunities and remove financial barriers for our students.”

The difference between what Garcia experienced and what today’s residents get is significant. Karla Damian Ibarra, a teacher resident with Houston ISD’s Grow-Your-Own program, shared how the financial benefit has removed stressors:

At Lone Star College, HB2 is shaping a new pathway. The community college launched a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education and teaching this fall, which results in a EC-6 license, designed for working adults, paraprofessionals, and other nontraditional candidates. Because the program is new, leaders can build residency, content, and district expectations into the design from the outset rather than retrofit an established system.

“I don’t have to change anything,” said Rebecca Morales Saiz, Executive Director of Educator Preparation Pathways at Lone Star College, and a 2026-27 DFI Impact Academy fellow. “I just have to build it.”

District responsiveness is central to how Lone Star is designing the new program. For example, when district partners told them that candidates who were content-certified earlier would be more immediately employable, the team was able to revise its course sequence in response.

“Because of that feedback, because of that partnership, that mutual collaboration that we had, we were able to pivot,” said Theresa Bibbs, Lone Star’s alternative teacher certification program manager.

What’s more complex: content integration, documentation, and delayed success-based funding

The same set of factors that make HB2 promising also make implementation challenging. Programs must integrate new instructional requirements, document candidate and mentor support, coordinate with district partners, and build the capacity to meet state expectations. But the three Houston-area EPPs are starting from different places.

At Sam Houston State University, much of the work HB2 is hoping to encourage already exists. The university has spent years building yearlong clinical experiences, residencies, district partnerships, and coursework grounded in evidence-based literacy, math, and the science of learning. Despite this, new state requirements require SHSU to adapt and document its already mature systems.

“There are a lot of balls in the air right now,” said Stacey Edmonson, former dean of SHSU. “There’s not a lot of room for making those transitions and especially making them in a way that’s intentional and meaningful.” As a result, the risk for EPPs is “feeling rushed, not quite ready, or not even sure what’s expected, plus a little bit of fear of messing things up.”

One unique challenge for the university is its size. Edmonson shared: “We will have over 6,000 touchpoints that have to be intentional - they have to be planned, they have to be documented, they have to be entered into our accountability system.”

Additionally, tapping into funding has been tricky. EPPs receive an initial $1,000 for each candidate who completes the Reading and Math Academies. But to access the rest of the funding, because EPPs are not the employers, HB2 requires candidates to first complete the program, be certified, hired, and retained through their first year of teaching. Berg shared: “We have to front all that money because as EPPs, we don’t get a dime until two years from now and the work starts today.”

“We will have over 6,000 touchpoints that have to be intentional - they have to be planned, they have to be documented, they have to be entered into our accountability system.” -Stacey Edmonson, Former Dean

Houston ISD faces a different challenge. Given that it manages its own pathways and also partnerships with outside providers, HB2 may help sustain that infrastructure, but it also adds another layer of expectations to an already complex system.

“Sometimes having additional funds come in, whether it’s a grant or a PREP Allotment, whatever the case may be, there’s work and people behind that work,” said Elizabell Garcia.

The district must also ensure candidates complete a state-determined sequence of new Reading and Math Academies content before they can start student teaching and a plan for completing the remaining content prior to certification. And it must figure out how to build greater coherence across multiple providers, each with their own course sequencing, clinical experiences, coaching, and candidate expectations.

At Lone Star College, the challenge is almost the reverse. Because its bachelor’s program is new, leaders can design around HB2 rather than retrofit an established degree. But building from the ground up requires clearer guidance, new district agreements, internal approval, faculty training, and careful attention to deadlines.

“There’s so many rules and regulations and…strings tied to things,” Saiz said. “I need somebody to walk alongside me and make sure that we are hitting all the marks and that I’m not missing anything – any of those deadlines, any of the compliance pieces.”

Saiz particularly noted wanting technical assistance to navigate HB2. That need isn’t unique to Lone Star; it showed up across our survey results, where technical support and capacity were among the most commonly named areas for support. While differences across the programs as they grapple with the same set of policy requirements are stark, there is a cohesive set of shared capacity-building opportunities to bolster implementation named as beneficial, including:

• Tailored support to effectively redesign literacy and math coursework sequences to include required content

• Ongoing, job-embedded, professional learning to build the knowledge and skills of course and clinical educators to teach the key knowledge and skills and pedagogical practices taught within the required content

• Expert-facilitated networked learning opportunities like Communities of Practice to problem-solve implementation challenges and receive ongoing coaching support

What lessons from Houston mean for HB2

HB2 has provided meaningful public investment in areas that contribute to stronger pipelines of well-prepared teachers entering the workforce.

But its quantity of requirements has also forced the field to take on myriad changes by translating requirements and incentives into coursework, staffing, data systems, new partnership agreements, and much more. While the additional capacity that comes with change is inevitable, the complexity is that programs are making these shifts while more structures and guidance are still being developed by the state.

Anyone who’s driven in Houston knows that getting from point A to point B isn’t often a straight line. The city’s intricate highway system is the product of a long-term, continuous juggling act of competing needs and considerations. The same is true of HB2 implementation. Given the complexity of the changes required, as well as the upfront investment required by EPPs before the infusion of success-based funding, adequate time and support are required for effective implementation. At the same time, the state can take targeted steps to bolster implementation efforts by clarifying requirements and timelines and addressing administrative barriers that can consume capacity without directly contributing to improving preparation.

This fall, DFI will publish a research report that dives into implementation takeaways from EPPs across the state and offers actionable recommendations for strengthening implementation support with the PREP Allotment. Subscribe to our newsletter to be notified when the report and new stories are published.

Read more:

Part I: Making quality accessible: how Houston teacher pathways are responding to new HB2 funding

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