Every Texan wants the 4.5 million public schoolchildren in this state to get a good education. Unfortunately, a vote by the Texas House attempting to do away with our newly enacted teacher incentive pay program is a huge leap backward in our work to improve public education.

Texas' pay-for-performance program, enacted less than a year ago, is the largest of its kind in the nation and a proven method to attract and keep quality teachers in the classroom. The lack of pay differentiation among teachers, regardless of performance, is among the greatest deterrents for professionals considering careers in education.

In fact, fully 75 percent of Texas teachers support higher pay for effective teachers, and even higher percentages of parents and taxpayers support such a program -- and for good reason. Research shows that teachers who participate in such programs are more likely to significantly raise student achievement.

If anything, we should greatly expand our existing program to reward and retain effective teachers. Both the House and Senate will have the opportunity to expand pay-for-performance and a host of other needed classroom-based reforms this session through a series of reforms created by a team of education experts.

When the Legislature met in special session in 2006, our lawmakers understood the importance of performance-based pay. They included a reformed teacher pay package in House Bill 1 -- groundbreaking legislation that will make great strides in improving education. HB 1 included an across-the-board pay increase for all teachers and a separate pool of resources to reward teachers for educator excellence and student achievement.

The balanced package was designed to raise all teachers' salaries and to create opportunities to reward and retain effective teachers in schools that serve low-income students. Even more funds were set aside for school districts to create incentives appropriate for their own districts, such as rewarding teachers who increase student achievement, recruiting or retaining teachers who teach in critical shortage areas and providing stipends to mentors or teacher coaches.

The recent vote by the Texas House strips away these resources and undermines the promise of the teacher incentive program.

And the news gets worse: A movement is afoot to further stymie progress through a series of legislative proposals that would take money earmarked for teachers in poor schools and transfer it to other uses, including pay raises in wealthy schools.

These misguided policies deprive the state of its best tools to help local districts with extra resources to recruit teachers in crucial subject areas, provide incentives for mentors, provide incentives to effective teachers and create other locally determined differentiation of pay.

Texas embarked on an important and necessary path with pay-for-performance through HB 1. By caving in to pressure to embrace misguided policy to abolish the new teacher incentive pay program, the Texas House punished the 4.5 million public school students in Texas who deserve the education that effective teachers can deliver.

Fortunately, members of the Senate have the chance to undo the House's devastating decision to abolish quality education policy in Texas. Anyone who cares about education should insist that they do.

Charles McMahen is president of Texans for Excellence in the Classroom.