Kristen Haase

Kristen Haase

I’ve spent decades teaching and working in the School District of Lancaster and believe strongly in the power of teachers to change lives. However, at this moment, I question whether to encourage my son and my students to become teachers themselves. The teaching profession is in a crisis in Pennsylvania.

A new report from Teach Plus and the National Center on Education & the Economy, “#PANeedsTeachers: Addressing Pennsylvania’s Teacher Shortage Crisis Through Systemic Solutions,” can help us understand the root causes and a path forward.

My son is starting to think about his future beyond high school. He recently asked me what made me decide to devote my life to teaching. My response came easily: I wanted to make a difference in the lives of my students and give back to my community. As a single woman 25-plus years ago, I also wanted a job that provided financial security and stability. At the time, teaching offered those things and was considered a respected and valued career path.

Today, my son has little interest in becoming a teacher. When I ask why, his reasons are the same as those of many young people and educators already in the profession: The pay is not enough to compensate for the time and energy that are required.

As a family, we have been researching the cost of in-state and out-of-state colleges. I was able to afford an out-of-state college years ago because of my parents’ resources. And since then, the cost of college has skyrocketed and teachers’ wages have plateaued when adjusted for inflation.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that teachers in the United States earn only 60% of the salary of similarly educated workers in other professions, while the international average is 90% to 100%. The #PANeedsTeachers report calls the mismatch between the high costs to enter the profession compared to the low pay “an unattractive cost-benefit equation for prospective teachers.”

I question whether my husband and I would want our son to go into a profession that will potentially saddle him with loans that a teaching salary would make difficult to repay. According to a 2022 poll reported in EducationWeek, only 37% of parents expressed interest in their children going into the teaching profession.

Pennsylvania data shows the number of teaching certificates issued per year has dropped dramatically over the past decade or so, confirming that my profession is unattractive to many.

But a new strategy highlighted in the #PANeedsTeachers report offers a way of providing future teachers an affordable pathway into the education field.

“Grow Your Own” programs — which have been developed by several Pennsylvania school districts, teacher preparation programs and nonprofits — build early interest in the teaching profession among current secondary school students. These programs also reduce the cost of teacher preparation by allowing students to earn college credit — and sometimes stipends as well — while still in high school.

Pennsylvania should implement and fund high-quality “Grow Your Own” and teacher apprenticeship programs, similar to Tennessee, in order to improve the cost-benefit ratio of becoming a teacher and make the profession more attractive to students and their families. By creating teacher apprenticeship programs funded through both education and workforce dollars, Pennsylvania will have a pipeline of experienced and diverse teachers with valuable on-the-job training to help ensure high-quality education for generations.

As I plan for my retirement, I see only too clearly the importance of continuing to build a strong teacher workforce. I am calling on Pennsylvania legislators to fund “Grow Your Own” programs and create a teacher apprenticeship model in order to pave the way for a new generation of heroes to educate the children of the commonwealth.

We need to call on Gov. Josh Shapiro and legislators to enact the recommendations from the #PANeedsTeachers report and invest $150 million to $300 million in the teacher pipeline in the commonwealth’s 2023-24 budget. If Pennsylvania hopes to be an educational and economic leader in the future, then recruiting and retaining a skilled and diverse teacher workforce must be a top priority of policymakers.

Kristen Haase is an English language development teacher in the School District of Lancaster and a Teach Plus Pennsylvania senior policy fellow. Teach Plus is a nonprofit aiming to empower teachers to lead on policy and practice issues that advance equity, opportunity and student success.

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