I'm reading this concerning piece on how uncertified teachers are getting hired to teach in Texas schools by Keri Heath with the Austin America Statesman titled, "Central Texas school districts, state seek solutions to train uncertified teachers" simultaneous with this excellent solutions-oriented piece by Cassandra Herring. The Austin Independent School District has responded by implementing local certification programs for such individuals.
The Heath article reports a Texas Tech study with a shocking statistic from 2023-24 that 41% of first-time teachers in a 17-county region that includes Travis, Hays, and Williamson counties were not certified to teach in our public schools! This compares to 34.6% of teachers beginning their teaching statewide without the necessary credentials. For comparison, in 2019-20, the rate was at 13.2%—which to me sounds already pretty high. So yes, we're in the middle of a teacher shortage crisis.
There absolutely need to be partnerships for grow-your-own programs that, for example, bring in paraprofessional and substitute teachers who can get certification, high-quality alternative certification programs, and address policy issues like giving teachers a higher wage and living allowances in local economies like Austin where finding affordable housing is tough.
Herring is correct to point to the important role that minority-serving institutions can play in preparing future teachers. It would be helpful if professionalizing the teaching profession were more of a priority for our state leaders, especially our governor who wants nothing more than the un-doing of public education in our state by underfunding our schools and doing everything possible to pass "educational savings accounts" or vouchers for private schools. We desperately need leaders in our state who see public education as the foundation of our democracy.
-Angela Valenzuela
According to a recent report, last school year, 45 percent of public schools said they were understaffed, and nearly 9 in 10 school districts reported struggling to hire teachers heading into the 2023-24 school year. They are still struggling. In addition to the current shortage, our teacher-preparation programs report decreased enrollment.
Shortages are most common in the traditionally tricky subject areas of special education, math, science and foreign languages. School districts in high-poverty areas or those that predominantly serve students of color have been especially hard hit.
There is an emerging solution: Partnerships at the local level between minority-serving institutions and local districts can help more children learn from highly effective, well-qualified teachers.
These partnerships can be far more effective than many current efforts to fill vacancies that resort to rushing adults who are not fully certified into the classrooms.
As you’d expect, those newly minted teachers need additional training in order to provide their students with the high-quality education they deserve. As a former college of education dean, I’m confident we can increase the number of high-quality teachers in the classrooms while closing the teacher diversity gap.
We can do this by investing in, supporting and leveraging the unique role of educator preparation programs at minority-serving institutions, which have a long and successful track record of preparing diverse educators to persist and thrive in teaching.
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Minority-serving institutions include our nation’s historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, tribal colleges and universities and institutions serving 25 percent or more of Asian Americans, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Many of these schools prepare their graduates to be effective teachers from day one, emphasizing subject and content knowledge along with teaching techniques. They train new teachers to recognize and value diversity as an asset and encourage engagement with families and local communities. They create lesson plans and curriculums that are both rigorous and accessible and foster environments in which all students can thrive.
In the 2020-21 academic year, minority-serving institutions enrolled 28 percent of all education prep candidates nationwide and 51 percent of all candidates of color, according to federal Title II data. Many of these schools actively engage in robust partnerships with their local education systems to strengthen teaching and learning.
One example: A partnership between Laredo Independent School District and Texas A&M International University’s Educator Preparation, which relies on high expectations and data-informed recruitment to develop terrific local teachers.
The partnership features initiatives like expanded dual credit programs to improve access to higher education and an effort to promote career mobility for students in Laredo ISD. It also fosters trust-based relationships and a collective vision, so that the entire local education ecosystem is deeply committed to the preparation and success of teacher candidates.
Another example comes from the organization I lead, the Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity, or BranchED, and our National Teacher Preparation Transformation Center. In North Carolina, we helped get faculty and teaching candidates from North Carolina A&T working alongside teachers in Guilford County Schools.
These collaborative efforts more effectively prepare novice teachers for the realities of teaching while enhancing their skills and knowledge for a smoother transition into the education system.
Also, more than a dozen teams from teacher preparation programs at minority-serving institutions are working with local district partners to support school hiring needs using BranchED’s Vacancy Data Tool. The tool helps align district teacher staffing needs and teacher preparation program certification areas, and it supports the development of targeted recruitment efforts to meet those needs.
Early results for all these partnership efforts are promising, prompting discussions on candidate placement strategies, district recruitment processes and marketing opportunities for upcoming vacancies. And we can further develop these partnerships by building additional tools that leverage the unique strengths and assets of districts and educator preparation programs to meet the needs of the communities they serve.
Related: OPINION: Arkansas is having success solving teacher shortages, and other states should take notice
Nationally, over 300,000 teaching positions were vacant or filled by teachers who were not fully certified in recent years. That’s why better alignment between teacher preparation programs’ production of teachers and school district staffing needs is warranted.
Through community partnerships, we can build a pipeline of educators equipped to thrive in today’s classrooms on day one, delivering a more inclusive and equitable education system for all.
Minority-serving institutions are doing their share by partnering with their communities to solve persistent problems at the local and district levels. They are also becoming more prominent players in our teacher preparation environment, leading the way in addressing local teacher shortages and driving innovative pathways into the profession.
By 2025, students of color will comprise nearly half of all college students. As minority-serving institutions continue to be major accelerants of this progress, these historic institutions will play a pivotal role in building a high-quality teacher workforce that looks more like America’s students.
Cassandra Herring is founder, president and CEO of Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity.
This story about the teacher shortage and minority-serving institutions was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.
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