Of the 49,400 teachers hired in Texas during the 2023-24 school year, over 17,000 of them were unlicensed, according to TEA data. Texas teachers can get certified by the State Board of Educator Certification, although experts say there are not strong enough incentives for all teachers to complete certification programs.
Meanwhile, many school districts are turning to uncertified teachers to combat staffing shortages and reduce class sizes.
The big picture
The rate of uncertified teachers has skyrocketed in recent years. School districts hired about 5,500 uncertified teachers during the 2019-20 school year, a number that nearly tripled to 15,300 during the 2022-23 school year.
Becoming certified is expensive and time-consuming, panels of educators and researchers said during a House Public Education Committee hearing. They encouraged lawmakers to raise teacher salaries and devote more resources to teacher retention.
“One in five uncertified teachers does not hold a bachelor’s degree. And three out of four have never worked in a public school,” said Jacob Kirksey, an assistant professor of education at Texas Tech University. “What's even more concerning is where these uncertified teachers are placed. They are not confined to filling vacancies in high school or CTE courses alone. ...They are spread across classrooms in the same proportion as we find other new teachers, including leading classrooms in early childhood, elementary and special education.”
Students taught by uncertified educators without previous classroom experience lose three to four months of learning in reading and math, Kirksey found during a recent study.
“I want to challenge the notion that it's acceptable to districts to rely on uncertified teachers, simply because getting the training and classroom experience is seen as unreasonable,” Kirksey said. “The single most important indicator of an educator’s impact on students is having spent time in the classroom, watching other teachers [and] being around students before leading a classroom on their own, often with little support.”
Zooming in
The Texas Classroom Teachers Association surveyed 1,460 of its members about certification and student outcomes before the Aug. 13 hearing, according to Holly Eaton, the association’s director of professional development and advocacy.
Members said that the rise of uncertified teachers in Texas classrooms “is detrimental to student learning, student safety and teacher morale,” Eaton said.
“This isn't a ‘learn as you go’ type of career—you need as much foundational knowledge as you can get before stepping into a classroom," she said.
Panelists also urged lawmakers to ensure parents are informed when their students are taught by uncertified teachers.
About one-third of Texas’ 1,207 school districts have opted out of notifying parents, according to Jim Van Overschelde, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at Texas State University.
“They are hiring these unlicensed teachers who are negatively impacting the student, ... and the parents are not being told this,” Overschelde said.
More details
Texas must invest in its teachers, which starts with supporting those who want to enter and remain in the profession, panelists said.
“What we’re hearing in terms of why [teachers are] leaving: the key word that’s popping up is ‘overwhelmed,’” said Laura Torres, an education research director at the University of Texas at Austin. “Many of them are just simply overwhelmed with the amount of responsibilities that are being put on them... especially when they're coming in not as prepared as they should be. They're not set up for success to be in a classroom of 20 teenagers.”
Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, said problems with public education are preventing young people from wanting to become teachers.
"It appears to me that if we don't solve the professionalism and clean up the profession to make it more viable for the teachers we have now, the recruitment point is going to get worse," King said. "That [trend is] statewide, that's nationwide, and I'm sure your universities are seeing that—you're not getting the kids to come in that declare themselves education majors in the numbers that we're used to. I can't tell you how many teachers have told me [they] told their kids not to be teachers."
Rep. Alma Allen, D-Houston, said the Texas Legislature, which funds public education, is “destroying the profession [of teaching].”
“[Teachers] have to pay their light bill, their gas bill, and take care of their children,” Allen said. “They want to live at the same level as—they should even live better than middle class. ... Pay the teachers. Treat them as the professionals that they are.”
Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, said teachers need to know how to manage a classroom above all else.
“We've got to get back to teaching classroom management because I'm hearing about behavior [from teachers],” Talarico said. “And I think there's also something changing. There's a mental health crisis with kids, but you've got to train our teachers how to deal with that, because ... more than I hear about pay, more than I hear about [standardized testing], I hear about behavior.”
Allen and Talarico are both former public school teachers.
