During the height of the pandemic, I walked into a room with 50-plus students in search of my principal. At least 10 students were gaming or watching YouTube videos. Some chatted with friends through email. One was asleep at their desk. My principal sat at the head of the room, attempting to answer his phone and email.
That day, my principal covered for seven different teachers who were absent. I remember watching our secretary as she feverishly reviewed teachers’ schedules to make sure there was coverage. Our superintendent even drove a van to pick students up.
Miraculously students did not miss a day in our buildings. Our tiny public school district continued to serve our community as best as we could.
As a teacher though, I wonder: Is this only the beginning? Will we forever be short-staffed? Are there any kids out there who want to be teachers when they grow up? Last year our teachers’ union did not provide an education major scholarship to a high school senior because there were zero graduating seniors interested in becoming a teacher. This is heartbreaking.
Since 2010, the number of teachers certified annually in Pennsylvania has decreased from 20,000 to fewer than 7,000. This decline of more than two-thirds in 10 years is twice as high as the national average. Teacher shortages are highest in special education, English language instruction, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects. Pennsylvania has a particularly significant shortage of educators of color, with only 6% of the educator workforce identifying as persons of color, compared with 37% of the student population.
This shortage cannot be solved by lowering the bar to becoming a teacher. The number of teachers teaching on emergency certification permits surpassed the number of newly certified teachers for the first time in Pennsylvania in 2021-22. Instructors with emergency certification often have little to no coursework in the subject they were assigned to teach. New teachers in Pennsylvania leave their first placement in the first five years. Inconsistent training and emergency certification perpetuate the vicious cycle. We must reimagine teacher preparation and fully invest in our teacher pipeline.
Beginning educators need mentor teachers to support them in developing their craft. For the last five years, Kutztown University partnered local high school seniors with mentor teachers throughout their college careers. We need more professional opportunities and incentives like this for beginning teachers, with equity at the center. We also need more and better funded pathways to become an educator.
The Palisades and Bethlehem school districts offer dual enrollment, coursework, and field experience in teaching. The Kennett Consolidated School District partners with West Chester University to create an eight-year, grow-your-own teacher pipeline for high school juniors. After a successful college experience at West Chester, participants return to Kennett while pursuing a master’s program.
The Center for Black Educator Development in Philadelphia hosts summer and year-round programs to high school students to inspire them to become educators in K-12 teaching. Beginning in 2023-24, high schools and career and technical centers will be able to offer a new program of study for a career and technical education, allowing more students to pursue teaching while earning an industry-recognized credential and college credit.
We should build on these successful initiatives to bring more of our talented young people into teaching.
A report from Teach Plus and the National Center on Education and the Economy explores the causes of teacher shortages in Pennsylvania and presents a range of systemic solutions, including those described above. This budget season, Gov. Josh Shapiro and our legislative leaders have a clear roadmap for how to address this crisis and make a major investment of $150 million to $300 million in the educator pipeline, adopting the report’s policy solutions into legislation.
Our children are counting on us. We can do better than a classroom of 50 students with a kind but overburdened administrator at the helm. We can reframe the educator pipeline by investing in policy changes. This is a crisis we can fix.
Beth Patten is social studies department chair and a teacher in the Kutztown School District. She is a 2021-22 Teach Plus Pennsylvania Policy Fellow.
