District leaders have long tapped those with special content or professional knowledge to teach, even without prior teaching experience or a teaching certificate. During extended or severe teacher shortages, states often grant a broader range of emergency or temporary teaching licenses to those who aren’t certified educators.
But both the breadth and duration of uncertified instructors in classrooms since the pandemic is unprecedented. Now, states like Texas—where an unintended loophole made districts’ use of uncertified teachers nearly universal—are starting to find that relying on this stopgap for teacher shortages hinders student learning and damages, rather than strengthens, the teacher pipeline in the long run.
Texas is among the states that has a high proportion of these uncertified teachers. The Lone Star state recently took steps to close that loophole, but it will take years to kick in. And, experts say, the situation in Texas is emblematic of what’s happened at a smaller scale all over the country.
“The state was trying to responsibly deal with the impact of the pandemic,” said Heath Morrison, the chief executive officer of Teachers of Tomorrow, one of Texas’ largest alternative certification programs. “But flexibility for individuals was never intended to be used at scale … and a lot of states are allowing these people to stay on these temporary licenses for three year, five years, 10 years.
“I think people are starting to recognize that the problem is a lot bigger than they originally thought,” he said.
Read more at Education Week.
