Report: More Pa. teachers hired under emergency permits than received formal certifications

Oct. 16—HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania issues emergency teaching permits when public schools can't find fully qualified, certified applicants. According to a new analysis of state education data, the number of emergency hires surpassed the count of teachers newly certified through in-state programs.

Teachers had once been an export of the Keystone State. That's no longer the case.

New teacher certificates fell 64% in the past decade, dropping from 21,045 issued in 2010-11 to 7,695 in 2020-21, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education. When isolating certifications from in-state programs, the decline within that same period is just as steep: from 15,031 to 5,440.

In 2020-21, the first full year of school during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of emergency certifications issued for long-term substitutes totaled 5,958. The figure doesn't include day-to-day substitutes.

"I was shocked by that. That one data point really tells you that school districts are having a very difficult time finding enough teachers," said Ed Fuller of Penn State University, who included the data in a fresh analysis of the ongoing teacher shortage in Pennsylvania.

Emergency permits were most common for English as a second language, computer science, career and technical education and special education. Candidates must have a bachelor's degree from a state-approved institution — there are exceptions for career and technical instruction, school nurses and dental hygienists — but it doesn't have to be in education.

Those working under an emergency permit, according to Fuller, were most likely to be employed in schools in poor districts, rural districts and those with high enrollment of Black students.

"They don't want to hire teachers on emergency permits. They don't really have other options at this point," said Fuller, an associate professor in the Department of Education Policy Studies in the College of Education.

The shortage, of course, extends beyond Pennsylvania. Nationally, public education employs approximately 360,000 fewer workers than before the pandemic, according to August 2022 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor. If trends in job growth are maintained, public education might not hit pre-pandemic levels until at least August 2032, according to a National Education Association (NEA) analysis.

Fuller's own analysis finds that the labor pool of prospective teachers is far too shallow to meet the demand for new hires, even as student enrollment also is in decline. Supplemental hiring after the pandemic's onset, accomplished with record emergency relief for public institutions like schools, helped worsen the situation by expanding opportunities without improving the labor pool. Attrition, on the whole, Fuller found, isn't a primary driver of the shortage.

Pennsylvania high-schoolers seem less interested in choosing education as a profession. It's evident in SAT College Bound data cited by Fuller. In 2009, 11.2% of students indicated they would pursue a degree in education. The percentage dipped to 4.5 in 2019.

"What we don't know is why people don't want to go into teaching anymore and we need to understand that," Fuller said before citing the worsened public perception of teaching as a career.

Perhaps it's financially driven. Fuller's analysis shows the average annual wage for teachers in Pennsylvania fell nearly 6% from 2000 to 2019. The Institute for College Access & Success reports that in 2019-20, the average debt load of a Pennsylvania college graduate reached $39,375, the third highest in the nation.

Some potential solutions cited by Fuller include raising wages, initiating scholarship and loan forgiveness programs, surveying teachers about workforce conditions and reacting to the replies, beginning a public advertising campaign to elevate perceptions about the teaching profession, and supporting an expansion of teacher development programs including for Black teachers.

The National Education Association released its own report this week highlighting potential solutions. The Pennsylvania State Education Association pointed to these suggestions which mirror the above: better pay and lower costs to get a degree along with mental health support for educators, improved working conditions and adopting more teacher input in curriculum.

NEA President Becky Pringle called the shortage "a five-alarm crisis," pointing to a national NEA survey that revealed about 55% of educators are considering leaving the profession early.

"Too often people want a silver bullet solution or will implement a Band-Aid approach. These shortages are severe. They are chronic. and the educator shortages that are gripping our public schools, colleges and universities will only be fixed with systematic, sustained solutions," Pringle said.

The Wolf administration in July unveiled its own three-year plan, "The Foundation of Our Economy," that aims to attract more professionals into the field by August 2025.

The state Department of Education aims to grow enrollees in teacher prep programs by 20% to reach 21,600, and raise the diversity of that pool of candidates from 14% to 25% people of color. Additional focus areas include revising the teacher certification and educator preparation processes to broaden the candidate base and make professional and leadership development opportunities more accessible.