Why do we continue to fail our teachers-to-be?

Last year, there were nearly 43,000 vacancies for teaching positions in California. With a push to return class sizes to smaller, pre-recession sizes, California needs to hire 60,000 new teachers, according to the Washington Post. However, according to Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Carol Liu, the last decade has shown a 75 percent decline of young people pursuing careers in the field of education. As a result, districts have been forced to hire underqualified teachers in an attempt to combat the teacher shortage, which further harms students’ education. This gap is perpetuated by the decision of many recent college graduates to forgo teaching due to a lack of incentives for a career in education and stigma surrounding teaching. To close this gap, California should reinstate a student loan forgiveness program and provide more guidance for future teachers to learn about the requirements of the career in order to incentivize a career in education.

One of the largest setbacks of teaching is the massive student debt graduates amass after receiving teaching credentials. With teaching certificate programs ranging anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000, and undergraduate degrees at in-state universities costing an average of $20,000, graduates looking to become teachers are faced with an upwards of at least $40,000 in debt. Given that the average starting teacher salary is $45,637, it takes the average teacher 21 years to earn back the cost of their college education. One way to create fewer barriers for recent college graduates to enter into the field of teaching would be to create student loan forgiveness programs. One piece of proposed legislation, Senate Bill 1264 by State Sen. Fran Pavley, would bring back a student loan forgiveness program that was eliminated during the recession. This program would require teachers to spend at least four years in a school with a large proportion of disadvantaged students or in a rural school with lots of staff vacancies. This legislation would not only help recruit college graduates into the teaching profession, but would also encourage experienced teachers to seek master’s degrees, National Board Certification or additional credentials. Student loan forgiveness gives more recent graduates incentives to pursue a career in teaching.

Additionally, even after a college graduate has decided to become a teacher, he or she must jump through several hoops. To apply for teaching credential programs, graduates must pass the California Basic Skills Education Test and California Subject Examinations for Teachers and, depending on the university, may have to take the general graduate student entrance exam, the GRE, as well. Through the credential programs, students apply for a five-year preliminary credential, which becomes a Clear Credential only after students apply for National Board Certification, among other options. Only then are students considered full-fledged teachers, even though they may have been teaching for multiple years. The various processes required to become teachers in California hold educators to a higher standard, which is beneficial because it supplies the state with well-prepared teachers. However, for a recent college graduate without mentors or knowledge of how to become a teacher, the process can be rather daunting.

One program that would greatly benefit recent graduates, proposed in SB 915 by Liu, would reestablish a previously cut entity that served as a one-stop shop for potential teachers. This program provides information about credential requirements and job opportunities to aspiring teachers and helps schools looking to recruit new teachers. To help provide future teachers with mentors to learn more about the career and witness life in the classroom, the state government also needs to create a program to pair new teachers with veteran ones. A similar program proposed in SB 933 by State Sen. Ben Allen would create a teacher residency program, which would allow new teachers to complete classroom instruction under the mentorship of a veteran teacher for up to three years while studying for their credential.

California needs to make major changes in order to supply the state with much-needed new teachers — to start, the state must implement student loan forgiveness programs to help teacher with college debt and create new programs to assist teachers with the rigorous process of receiving credentials.