HOUSTON -- A proposed teacher performance pay plan would put more money in teachers' pockets, but some said it needed more work, KPRC Local 2 reported.

Houston Independent School District Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra announced the plan on Thursday.

School district officials said the Accelerating Student Progress Increasing Results and Expectations, or "ASPIRE," Award program would pay teachers based on how much progress their students make and reward teamwork in the classroom.

The new plan would pay teachers of core academic subjects, such as English and math, up to $7,300 for their individual success in helping their students' academic achievement over three years.

Every teacher and staff member on a campus would be rewarded if the average academic improvement is in the top half of all schools in the district. Teachers would earn a $1,000 bonus and non-instructional staff would earn a $500 bonus if students at the school make greater academic achievement than students at 75 percent of HISD schools on the same level.

The progress would be determined by an overall score based on student improvement on the TAKS, Stanford and Aprenda tests.

"We reward progress," Saavedra said. "Every teacher in every classroom in the school district has the opportunity for their classroom to do well."

A group of 20 teachers worked with Saavedra for seven months to come up with the plan.

A teacher performance pay program was launched in January as a way of identifying and rewarding teachers for their students' academic growth, recruiting and retaining teachers. More than $15 million was paid to teachers and staff.

Many teachers felt the program was unfair because the system did not consider all of the work teachers do.

Teacher's union President Gayle Fallon said the new plan is not much better.

"Instead of creating a have and have not class, it's created a have and a class of teachers based on what they teach that get crumbs," Fallon said.

History teacher Ferryn Martin said she applauds change being made to the performance pay program, but she feels some teachers could be short-changed.

"Dr. Saavedra is rewarding what he thinks is important," Martin said. "That's part of where we disagree a little bit because he says, 'I'm rewarding excellent teaching.' I say we're rewarding test scores."

District officials said the new plan would recruit and retain the best teachers.

"I think what parents want is to make sure that what we care about, and what teachers care about, is the same thing that they care about, which is results" HISD Trustee Harvin Moore said.

Teachers would have the option to opt-out of working toward a bonus, but their results would still be counted for campus-wide bonuses.

The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, a philanthropic organization, added its support of the plan with a $3.6 million grant.

"Performance pay is a concept that's the standard in virtually every other industry," foundation founder Eli Broad said. "It makes sense that we pay teachers for their performance and reward those who are the most successful at improving student achievement."

The school board will vote on the proposal on Sept. 13. If approved, the board would have to pass a budget to fully fund the bonuses.