For Aspire Public Schools in Los Angeles, the turnaround took several years.
11 charter schools that have returned from the pandemic serve around 4,400 students. So, relying on Alder Graduate programs that help graduate students work as teachers in training, Aspire has built a new internal pipeline of educators.
The program has been a success, according to Christopher Carr, executive director of Aspire in Los Angeles. Teacher retention rates in the network have skyrocketed from around 60% to 90%, Carr reports. The biggest success of the school’s internal pipeline was special education, with the highest personnel losses following the pandemic.
But perhaps the best benefit is that this allows incoming teachers to absorb the culture of their aspiring. According to Carr, Aspire focuses on “anti-racism.” He believes this approach helped the network increase the number of black teachers by allowing schools to adopt consciously. A few years ago, about 7% of Aspire’s teachers were black. Now, that number has doubled to about 14%.
However, attracting middle and high school mathematics and science teachers is still very difficult. “It’s almost impossible to find a physics teacher right now,” he says.
Still, as long as ambitious schools are successful in retaining recruitment and teachers, the chain is in a rare position.
In California, teacher pipelines are dry, just like elsewhere in the country.
Nationally, states are relaxing educator qualification requirements to help schools navigate workforce issues. However, without a greater investment in alternative teacher training pipelines, some experts worry that schools may struggle to find and retain teachers.
At the same time, some states had to make their rules stricter. Texas reversed courses on educator qualifications since 2001, allowing states to loosen regulations and allow functionally trained teachers to rely entirely on online programs.
A state experiment using strict and generous credential rules has yet to arise a definitive solution.
Comparative advantage
California has some of the most robust teacher qualification requirements, says Beatrice Viramontes, executive director of Teach for America Bay Area.
The state’s education system desperately requires quality teachers in schools, but traditional qualification requirements are expensive and future teachers include many steps, says Viramontes. It creates additional barriers to increasing the number of staff, along with other hurdles like pay. Schools have had difficult times to attract teachers, especially among the younger generations. Gen Z and millennial teachers tend to leave the field earlier. That means that as older teachers retire, it will be difficult to replace them with quality new recruits, says Viramontes.
To solve the problem, the school had to take on the DIY spirit.
“The current process is tedious, so there’s a lot of energy to be creative,” says Villamontes.
Teach for America runs an alternative teacher credentials program. Since the pandemic, schools have begun creating their own internal alternative training programs. Some of these are trying to lead students currently working to earn their bachelor’s degrees through the certification process.
Viramontes praises several approaches as “innovative.” For example, there is Rivet, a paraprofessional program that works to bring students chasing them into the classroom. Teach Start is a teachers’ academy specializing in routes to alternative teachers for qualifications.
However, some people warn about teacher quality issues when schools have to resort to alternatives and other unlimited instructors.
California doesn’t have a good indicator to weigh the quality of these alternative programs, Viramontes admits. But anecdotes, she says there is a steady stream of demand from schools due to these programs.
The exact way this affects the school depends on where they are.
Online options are becoming more accessible in rural areas in the Central Coast of California, said Caprice Young, CEO and Superintendent of the Navigator School.
Navigator, a charter network of navigators, has around 2,200 students from kindergarten through eighth grade in transition, and about 300 staff (about 100 teachers). The network’s three schools are rural, all around 40 or 50 miles outside San Jose, with a fourth school in Hayward, sandwiched between San Jose and Oakland. For teachers, schools rely primarily on the Cal State University System’s Teach program.
It is common for navigator schools to grow teachers internally, Young says. With the end of the federal government’s pandemic relief funding, the Navigator School is focusing on hiring tutors and side-specialists who can put energy into teacher coaching programs.
But in the long run, this can be a problem. Tutors and paraprofessionals are now moving into vacant education positions, and without additional federal dollars, schools will not fill much of the paraprofessional work.
Still, schools find themselves adding grade levels, Young says. The pool of teachers that can be hired has swelled as nearby schools are declining due to reduced enrollment.
But finding more teachers, as other states have learned, is not the end of anguish.
Carrots and sticks
In Texas, there is another problem.
recently, The governor signed HB 2 prohibits teachers who have granted instructions on “core” themes (reading, mathematics, science, social studies) in public schools from 2029 to 2030.
It’s relatively in Texas Deregulated Teacher Preparation Certificate Statussays Jacob Kirksey, an assistant professor at the University of Education at Texas Tech. Exemptions from the Innovation District policy Even before the pandemic, public school districts in Texas could demonstrate a shortage meant they wouldn’t need to get approval from state educational institutions to hire uncertified teachers, Kirksey said.
Some of Kirskey’s works were two years ago. Half of the new hires were not eligiblea tendency to disproportionately affect rural areas. The lack of teachers was the worst in middle and high school mathematics and science, he says, which is a bad pattern even in rural areas.
It appears that many states are following older Texas leads allowing more licensed teachers to lead classrooms, Kirskey adds. In 2024, over 365,000 teachers from 49 states and DC worked for their positions without being fully accredited. Research Institute for Learning Policy. And several states, like South Carolina and Indiana, recently passed laws that ease eligibility requirements.
This could increase the number of bodies in the classroom, but it also raises questions about the quality of instruction.
Kirksey’s work highlights the relationship between unlimited teachers and reduced student achievement. With the average licensed teacher, students are about three months behind in mathematics and four months behind within a grade, he says.
Observers praised the new Texas law for funding to help eligible teachers in their classrooms obtain qualifications. The law also supports university-based educator preparation programs.
A gentle rock on the uphill
Some believe that solving the problem of teacher shortages and that unqualified educators need more effort.
Gemar Mills, executive director of College Adeace, a network of 11 charter schools across three New Jersey cities, doesn’t just rely on lawmakers to solve the problem.
In New Jersey, several pre-pandemic attempts have maintained the flow of teachers to schools.
For example, there is Trio Academya program that supports students without university degrees, obtain degrees and pursue educational qualifications.
There is also a state program run by the New Jersey Education and Learning Center, which aims to boost the supply of science teachers. The program will guide certified teachers to the Graduate School of Physics program before assisting in obtaining credentials to teach the subject. Even before the pandemic, Mills accepted this. He then recalls the gym teacher who completed the program and became a physics instructor. In recent years, the program has expanded from physics to other sciences.
However, the pandemic has intensified searches for alternative sources for teachers. “Covid opened the lock for what was acceptable,” says Mills.
Recently, in New Jersey, you have credentials somewhere in extreme places in California and Texas. The pandemic has impacted state generosity and has urged policymakers to relax their credentials standards. Being a qualified teacher usually involves meeting a minimum GPA, scoring on basic skills tests, experiencing teaching practices, and completing a university degree. but, “Limited Edition” certified – A five-year programme launched in 2022 – Teachers can earn temporary qualifications by completing three of these criteria.
Ultimately, Mills’ school saw what replaced college alumni, longtime teacher assistants, and all pivots with full-time education.
However, there are still challenges.
For example, because the school is capped, only 10% of teachers can obtain their generous credentials. The university achieved its peak. Moreover, finding teachers in science, mathematics and special education remains a pain, Mills reports.
School leaders want to gain more teachers. But it solves problems that require more innovative and effective authentication pathways, says Mill.
