Teachers leaving the profession and college students declining to enter it cite myriad reasons for the trend, so legislators can’t resolve the resulting crisis-level teacher shortage with any single policy change.

They can, however, focus on the most commonly cited impediments to educating and certifying new teachers. Ed Fuller, a professor in Penn State’s Department of Education Policy Studies, issued a report in April citing increasing costs of higher education, wages and worsening working conditions as the three main drives of early teacher departures and the inability to replace them.

Since 2010, the state’s number of Instructional I basic teacher certifications has declined by 66%, according to the Department of Education. The 2021-2022 school year marked the first time in state history in which the department issued more temporary emergency teaching certificates, 6,366, than certificates to new teachers, 4,220. For the 2010-2011 school year, the state certified 10,800 new teachers.

So far, state policymakers have begun to address the educational-cost aspect of the shortage. In his first proposed budget, Gov. Josh Shapiro has proposed state tax credits for new teachers of up to $2,500 for each of three years. And two state senators, Republican Ryan Aument of Lancaster County and Vincent Hughes of Philadelphia, have introduced a bill to pay a stipend of $10,000 to student teachers.

State law requires prospective teachers to work in a classroom for 12 weeks to qualify for certification, but without pay.

”Traditionally, an individual participating in student-teaching either must quit their job or work an additional job after spending the entire day teaching,” the senators said in a legislative memo.

The tax credit and student teacher stipend are not enough, on their own, to arrest the trend away from teaching. But they are incremental steps in the right direction that the Legislature should pass.

Meanwhile, lawmakers could strike a major blow by heeding the state Commonwealth Court ruling requiring equitable distribution of the state government’s public school funding. Doing so would enable less-affluent districts to offer better compensation and otherwise improve working conditions to attract more new teachers to the profession.

— Republican & Herald, Pottsville, via TNS