State group considers ways to address serious deficits in NYS teacher pipeline


On Board Online • February 26, 2024

By Sara Foss
Special Correspondent

The State Education Department (SED) is considering overhauling teacher and school leader certification to modernize what officials described as a byzantine process.

The potential changes were presented in February to the P-20 Education Work Group, which is composed of nine members of the Board of Regents.

In one-third of New York districts, at least 5% of staff teach outside their certification areas, according to Jeffrey Matteson, senior deputy commissioner for education policy.

"The scary part is that's doubled since 2019," he said. "So it's progressively getting worse."

He added: "Districts are asking us to do something about this."

Many schools are facing staff shortages at the same time that the state's teacher preparation programs are seeing steep declines in enrollment, said Jim Baldwin, chief policy advisor at the New York State Education Department. "There is not a meeting we have with superintendents that we do not hear about the difficulty of finding appropriately certified teachers to put in front of students," he said.

Matteson and Baldwin said the most promising way to build local, sustainable pipelines of educators involves providing more pathways to certification. Officials outlined six possible changes:

  • Alternatives to a master's degree. New York is one of three states that require teachers to earn a master's degree to become certified. While keeping that as an option, the Regents could allow this requirement to be fulfilled with graduate coursework short of a master's degree, or when individuals earn a National Board Certification (see www.nbpts.org ). The Regents could authorize creation of a credential or set of credentials that could be issued by a district or a BOCES (as well as institutions of higher learning).
  • Accept other state's certifications. Right now, teachers must pass the New York State Teacher Certification Exam. The Education Department's proposal would allow teachers to pass certification exams from other states, making it easier for teachers from out-of-state to teach in New York.
  • Reducing requirements for additional teacher certificates. This proposal would reduce the number of semester hours needed to obtain some additional teacher certificates from 30 to 18. This change was made for science teachers in 2022. Under the proposal, teachers would no longer be required to complete a student teaching experience in the additional certificate area.
  • Create a pathway from TA to teacher. This proposal would create a professional certificate that, among other things, allows one year of experience as a teaching assistant (TA) to meet the student teaching requirement for certification, creating a seamless pathway from TA to teacher.
  • New transitional certificate. The Regents could establish a new "transitional teacher" certificate to streamline certification. People with this certificate could complete a practice-based educational program that focuses on specific teaching competencies. Such a certificate program would be administered jointly by an institution of higher education and a partner organization, which could be a school district, a BOCES or a non-profit professional educational organization.
  • Consolidate administrator certificates. Currently, there are three different types of administrator certificates in New York: School Building Leader (SBL), School District Leader (SDL) and School District Building Leader. This proposal would replace the SBL and SDL certificates with a new Professional Administrator certificate that would prepare school leaders to serve at district and building levels.

SED's examination of its educator certification process began about three years ago with the goal of providing flexibility to districts during the pandemic. The discussion has "turned into a deeper dive," with officials engaging stakeholders in a conversation about the future of teacher and school leader certification, Baldwin said.

He acknowledged that there's "some very strenuous opposition" to the certification proposals within higher education. "They may have issues with some of the specific ideas," he said. "But the idea of creating a more clinically rich practice environment is one that many of them have indicated they support and would embrace."

Regent Roger Tilles compared the effort to create more pathways to teacher certification to the Education Department's recommendations to create more pathways to high school graduation for students. "We're trying to make (the process) more relevant and strengthen it," he said. "I don't want to get caught in the trap where people are saying, 'Well, you're making it easy.' That's not at all what we're trying to do."

Chancellor Lester Young pointed to "equitable distribution of talent" as an issue. "How do we make sure that the districts that need these teachers the most have access to them?" he asked. "That's really the struggle. How do we ensure that?"

The list of potential changes to educator certification described at the P-20 Education Work Group meeting will likely turn into regulatory proposals that go before the Board of Regents for action, Matteson said. But that, he said, is "a ways off."

Download an SED PowerPoint presentation on certification reform at bit.ly/49yxNrg .




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