Testimony of David Aderhold, Ed.D., President, GSCS

Joint Committee on the Public Schools: February 22, 2022

 

          Today we have been asked to offer testimony on how staffing shortages have affected students and student achievement.

 

The past 24 months have been the most trying time within recent history.  In the midst of COVID, school systems have been confounded by the pressing needs of our students, academically, emotionally, and socially. We are now at a crossroads where we must meet those very needs during the greatest staffing challenge that we have experienced in recent history. The lack of certified teachers, nurses, counselors, and support staff, coupled with a decrease in substitutes has had a profound effect on the services provided to our students.

 

The pipeline is broken

The staffing shortages are directly impacted by the broken pipeline of educators entering our vocation. That pipeline was fractured before the pandemic, but eviscerated as a result of it.

Since March of 2020 our profession has seen dramatic increases in retirements and early retirements, and increases in medical leaves and maternity leaves.  The decrease in the numbers of people entering our profession has had a detrimental effect on both student learning and staff morale, driving larger class sections, causing teachers to carry additional sections, and requiring teachers to cover classes over and above their contractual course loads.  This has driven some districts to offer fewer sections of some course offerings, and, in some cases, required students to sit idle with limited instruction while districts search for replacements. The challenges in finding appropriately certificated leave replacements cannot be overemphasized. The overall impact on the learning and overall school environments can be profound.

 

Shortages and barriers

Let’s be clear, the challenges with the current staffing shortages are systemic and have been exacerbated by the pandemic,  but they existed before the pandemic.  The failed education policies of the Christie administration, continued by the current NJDOE, current State Board, current Legislature, and current Governor are directly impacting the teacher pipeline. The failure of EdTPA, in particular and its disruptive and destructive impacts on the teacher pipeline were predictable.  Before its implementation in 2017, university and college presidents, education advocates, and district administrators all testified against EdTPA, yet we continue this broken practice which has consistently provided our system with fewer new educators every year. Worse, the barrier posed by EDTPA has decreased minority representation in our educator workforce, which has had a detrimental impact on our students. There is no doubt that this program increased the cost of becoming an educator, as well as the cost of becoming certified, creating multiple barriers to becoming an educator.

 

Examples and data

The failed policies of EDTPA coupled with the continued negative public conversation about educators, the changes in benefits received by our educators--including both changes to health benefits and pension--and the profound challenges of the pandemic, have only exacerbated the current situation.

A holistic approach to address the teacher pipeline is required and we need to take immediate emergency steps  to address the pervasive vacancies that are found throughout the profession.

As a former urban high school principal who became a suburban superintendent, I have often remarked that the staffing trends seen in the urban and urban rim districts have often been a predictor of the trends we would see within the suburban districts. As an example, as a principal I would hope for a handful of physics or chemistry candidates to apply perhaps only to have one or two candidates. However, when I came to WWP I found our applicant pools were flush with prospective teacher candidates. Twelve years later, we have had a Chemistry vacancy since October that we are just filling. We had only one applicant who met the standard for employment. Today, we have vacancies across all certification areas. Teachers are leaving the profession for industry.  In my district, over 80 staff members have been on maternity leaves, and countless others are on medical leaves. Trying to find a maternity leave position for hard to fill certification areas such as Dual Language Mandarin/Elementary or Culinary Arts is near impossible….but trying to find positions that we used to have in abundance is also difficult. Simply, there are not enough candidates graduating in any certificate area to fulfill the needs. This situation is coupled with certification areas where programs have been closed or no do not produce enough candidates to meet the needs. 

Here are two examples:

1. In the area of World Languages, TCNJ used to produce the highest quality Spanish Teachers.  Now today, their program is closed.

2. Another area would be Teacher of Technology. TCNJ produces 3-6 candidates a year, barely enough to fill the vacancies in my district, let alone the needs of the entire state.  Districts are all vying for the same candidates.

 

Immediate solutions needed

There are no longer enough candidates to fill the vacancies statewide and the legislature, NJDOE, and State Board need to take emergency actions to address the broken teacher pipeline.

What can be done? A few steps have already been taken:

• Allowing 30 credit subs;
• Making it possible for retired nurses and retired teachers to re-enter the workforce without pension penalties.
• Next, we must address the following areas:
• Provide full Reciprocity for those entering NJ with teacher certification from outside of the State;
• Expand upon Alternate Route pathway for career changers;
• Create embedded and funded residency programs;
• End the NJ residency requirement;
• Develop programs enabling Instructional Assistants to become certified.
• Incentivize high school students to become teachers through grants, scholarships and loan forgiveness;
• Rethink the ongoing negative campaign against public education that has been waged in the name of “accountability”.  This campaign and philosophy caused harm by advocating for and facilitating the implementation of an assessment system that fails to yield meaningful, reliable, or valid data; a teacher prep program that is now outsourced to Pearson; and a broken pension system that has driven educators and future educators from the system.

 

Through my work in Garden State Coalition of Schools, NJASA, and Mercer County ASA, I am constantly hearing distress cries from educators, with some superintendents wondering how they will find enough staff to open successfully next fall. We need to take immediate and actionable steps to support our students and our educators.  If we do not take positive action now, we will lose the opportunity to mitigate the impacts we are currently facing, not to mention the projected severe staffing challenges for the next decade.

 

 

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