This article appeared in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

The coverage stems from a breakfast forum in Lubbock on January 31, 2025 focused on the high percentage of uncertified teachers in Texas schools.

Reliance on uncertified teachers in Texas leads to issues, discussion by policy experts

by Mateo Rosiles

Over half of newly hired Texas teachers are uncertified to teach in public school classrooms, according to a study done by a Texas Tech professor.

On top of that, teacher retention rate is down, and students are struggling, which is preventing Texas’ K-12 education from getting a passable report card. These issues stem from or cause a more significant issue — a shortage of teachers in Texas — which Gov. Greg Abbott announced he will be addressing during his State of the State address on Sunday.

These issues prompted West Texas educators and policymakers to come together to discuss problems and solutions Friday at Texas Tech University.

Research by Assistant Professor Jacob Kirksey of Texas Tech’s College of Education highlighted how teachers who are trained in programs with a student teaching element have higher industry retention rates than those who come from other programs.

“We have alternate providers that we know from the data are not producing as effective teachers, such as our fully online programs,” Kirksey said. “One in four Texas teachers is currently being prepared in this way, and 80% of those teachers will no longer be in the classroom after five years.”

Other findings from his research include:

• Over half of new teachers in Texas are not certified by the state through the Texas Education Agency.
• Uncertified teachers make up over 80% of the new hires in 40 Texas counties — most being rural counties.
• West Texas has three rural counties with a teacher workforce of 80% uncertified teachers in the 2022-23 school year.
• Lubbock County was in the 40-60% range of hiring uncertified teachers.
• 72% of uncertified teachers have no previous experience in working in Texas schools.
• Around 1 in 5 uncertified teachers do not hold a bachelor’s degree.

Kirksey said the research also showed that mentorship education for future teachers is not only beneficial in retention but also in student learning.

West Texas school districts, including Snyder Independent School District, are feeling this effect.

“The challenges in a rural district are much deeper than I ever experienced in a 6A (school district),” said Jessica Gore, chief academic officer for Snyder ISD.

Gore said the school district does hire uncertified teachers because the supply of certified teachers does not meet the demand. Another issue SISD faces is teacher retention due to compensation, with the teacher base salary being around $33,000 in Texas.

To help incentivize teachers to stay, Gore said Snyder utilizes the state’s Texas Incentive Allotment — an added bonus to teacher salaries that is merit-based.

Gore said TIA works for the district, with SISD seeing less turnover for teachers during mid-year, having only seven teachers leaving so far in the 2024-25 year compared to 21 in 2022-23.

“However, if you’re a parent of one of the students of the seven teachers that have left, you feel that impact,” Gore said.

Another thing Snyder uses, and something Lubbock ISD helped established, is the TechTeach Program.

Kathy Rollo, superintendent for LISD, said she and a previous TTU College of Education dean collaborated to build a program that allowed college students in the education program to be student teachers in LISD classrooms for an entire year and to become certified.

“Our TechTeach teachers who are now in our district are some of the very, very best that we have,” Rollo said.

LISD currently has 87 TechTeachers this year. Snyder — the first rural district involved in the program — has seen 27 TechTeachers since 2015, with 23 still teaching.

Rollo noted that LISD has a policy to only hire individuals with at least a bachelor’s degree.

While these programs and other district-specific initiatives help, the truth about Texas’ K-12 education is bleak.

The supply is not meeting the demand, which is causing a reliance on uncertified teachers.

“We’re not doing this in other professions,” said Ryan Franklin. “We don’t have unlicensed attorneys practicing out there. We don’t have unlicensed barbers or hairdressers out there. Teaching is one of the few things that we would call professionals, that we are letting people come in completely uncertified and do this.”

Franklin, managing director of policy and advocacy for Philanthropy Advocates, said there is a need for a comprehensive plan from state lawmakers rather than fixing one issue at a time.

“The Nation’s Report Card results were released, and this is the only sort of benchmark we get to compare all the states in the country on how they’re doing on educational outcomes, and unfortunately, we saw some backward trend lines,” Franklin said.

Some of those findings, which compared 2022 to 2024, included:

• Texas fell from 33rd to 37th in 4th-grade reading.
• Texas fell from 41st to 44th in 8th-grade reading.
• Texas fell from 25th to 34th in 8th-grade math.

The only area that saw improvement was 4th-grade math, in which Texas jumped from 14th to 8th place nationwide.

While districts are finding ways to combat these issues, and some solutions are in place, Franklin said there is more that can be done by state leaders.

“We are hopeful this session, with the examples and the support and the leadership of people in this room, with the legislative delegation from this area, and the leadership we have there, we’ll be able to continue to elevate these changes and these issues, to move this forward and get us down the road,” Franklin said.