It’s not just COVID-19: Why Texas faces a teacher shortage

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Texas schools have long had too few teachers. The pandemic made the situation worse — but issues like low pay, poor benefits and polarizing statewide politics all have an impact, too. texasnews schools covid19 kprc kprc2 click2houston

Rural Texas districts struggling to attract teachers are switching to four-day school weeksThe combined effect of all of the above is that educators are leaving the field in droves. Most of them are new, early-career teachers.

“We have a lot more teachers leaving the profession, which is creating a lot of additional vacancies,” said Kelvey Oeser, TEA’s deputy commissioner of educator and system support.Since the 2011-12 school year, Texas’ attrition rate has hovered around 10%. That number dipped to about 9% during the 2020-21 school year but is going back up — rising to almost 12% during the 2021-22 school year.

In Texas, people who want to become teachers but did not get a degree in education can do so in about a year through the state’s alternative certification program. They are placed in a classroom under an intern certificate before getting fully certified as a teacher. “Why am I going to worry about 25 or 30 kids when I have my own family to worry about?” Mock said. “The existential anxiety there is really kind of what drove me away.”Mock said he remembers kids coming into his classroom with no shoes, some of whom hadn’t eaten a meal all day. Circumstances like these made teaching and learning hard, and it was demoralizing.Mock said he would have benefited from having a veteran teacher by his side during his first two years of teaching.

 

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