News from the South - West Virginia News Feed

As teacher burnout deepens, states scramble to fill school job vacancies

Published

5 hours ago

May 22, 2025

westvirginiawatch.com – Robbie Sequeira – 2025-05-22 05:00:00

by Robbie Sequeira, West Virginia Watch
May 22, 2025

As another school year ends, superintendents across the United States are staring down an autumn staffing crisis, with 1 in 8 teaching positions either vacant or filled by an underqualified educator.

States that are struggling with post-pandemic teacher shortages have spent millions to lure replacements and retain veterans with hiring bonuses and bumps in salaries. But hiring gaps remain, so some states also are trying another tactic: changing their standards.

The changes in teacher training and licensing come amid widespread turmoil in public schools: Tax revenue is being siphoned toward private school vouchers in many states; some classrooms are being scrutinized for banned books, displays or teaching lessons that trip into diversity, equity and inclusion territory; and students who went through pandemic-era shutdowns are struggling both with sitting still and with learning the material.

Some surveys show that fewer than a fifth of teachers are happy in their jobs.

“Teaching is not seen as an attractive profession right now,” said Drew Gitomer, an expert on teaching assessment at Rutgers Graduate School of Education.

“COVID exacerbated things, and teachers are caught in the middle of political battles — over curriculum, book bans, even personal attacks,” he said. “It’s not a healthy work environment, and that drives people away.”

Teaching is not seen as an attractive profession right now.

– Drew Gitomer, an expert on teaching assessment at Rutgers Graduate School of Education

Last year, Illinois enacted a law allowing teacher candidates to begin student teaching before passing content-area exams. It was an effort to reduce barriers for underrepresented groups, the measure’s sponsor said.

A bill under consideration this year would give more districts discretion over whether to factor pupils’ test scores into teacher evaluations, a break from a 15-year-old mandate.

In New Jersey, a new law formally removes the Praxis Core exam — traditionally used as an entry-level screening tool for aspiring teachers — from certification requirements.

And in Nevada — one of the states hit hardest by teacher shortages — a bill would streamline licensure for incoming educators. The bill would allow teachers credentialed in other states to begin working in Nevada classrooms while awaiting formal approval.

It also would remove extra steps for teachers switching grade levels and would waive application fees for recent substitute teachers.

Linda Darling-Hammond, founding president and chief knowledge officer of the Learning Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said teacher shortages hit hardest in schools serving low-income students and students of color, where instability often leads to larger class sizes, canceled courses or a revolving door of substitute teachers.

“When you walk into a school facing shortages, you see instability,” she said. “Students may be taught by people who don’t know what to do, who leave quickly, and who often rely more on discipline than engagement.”

The root cause? Teacher attrition.

“Nine out of 10 vacancies every year are because of attrition — and two-thirds of that is not retirement,” Darling-Hammond said. “Support in the beginning matters. Teachers who come in and get a mentor stay longer. If you’re just thrown in to sink or swim, the odds of leaving are much greater.”

Morrisey signs bill creating ‘Troops to Teachers’ program for veterans amid WV teacher shortage

States have long struggled to attract teachers, and credentialing changes aren’t unusual. But some education advocates fear long-term repercussions.

Melissa Tooley, director of K-12 educator quality at the left-leaning think tank New America, said most states now offer alternative and fast-track teacher certification pathways, many of which allow candidates to start teaching with little or no pedagogical training in how to teach.

“We’re churning through people who might have potential, but we’re not setting them up for success,” she said. “A lot of what states are doing is short term. It’s about filling seats, not necessarily building a sustainable or high-quality workforce.”

More than 40 states require aspiring teachers to take the costly Praxis Subject test for the subject they want to teach, which some experts argue excludes strong candidates and duplicates other assessments.

“You were excluding people who might be good teachers but didn’t do well on that specific test,” said Rutgers’ Gitomer, who has researched the test’s effects on recruitment.

However, he added, dropping tests doesn’t necessarily help.

Several states — Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Washington and Wisconsin — have dropped a licensure requirement known as edTPA since 2022, but there’s little evidence the move has helped ease teacher shortages, Gitomer said. (The acronym stands for Educative Teacher Performance Assessment and involves a portfolio that includes testing and videos of classroom performance.)

“The state eliminated edTPA but didn’t replace it with a specific alternative,” he said.

“Instead, it gave full discretion back to individual institutions to develop or adopt their own performance assessments,” he said. “When we talked to institutions, it became pretty clear they didn’t think removing edTPA would be a major driver in addressing the shortage — and they haven’t seen evidence that it has been.”

How best to credential

Tooley said state credentialing systems must navigate a delicate balance: ensuring there are enough teachers, maintaining instructional quality and increasing workforce diversity.

“There’s this triangle — three pieces that need to be in place — and I think there are real tensions when it comes to how states are designing their certification policies,” she said.

And Gitomer described a fragmented national landscape, where some states are tightening teacher entry standards while others are dramatically loosening them — even allowing non-degreed individuals to teach.

“Some states are trying to raise standards; others are relaxing them to the point where you may not even need a college degree,” he said.

Indiana now requires all pre-K through grade 6 and special education teachers to complete 80 hours of training on the “science of reading,” a method that includes phonics, and pass an exam by 2027. State Sen. Jean Leising, a Republican, has proposed cutting the requirement in half, calling it “an excessive burden with little actual benefit” in a news release.

In Texas, a bill aims to reduce the use of uncertified teachers by the 2029-30 school year. The legislation would set a gradual cap on the percentage of uncertified teachers districts can employ in core curriculum classes — starting at 20% in 2026-27 and decreasing to 5% in 2029-30.

According to the Texas Education Agency, 31% of new hires in 2024-25 lacked a state teaching certificate or permit.

Yet some states stand out for how they’re changing their requirements, Tooley said.

She pointed to Washington, which has designed a recruitment strategy encouraging paraprofessionals, often known as teacher’s aides, to become classroom teachers. Also known as paraeducators, they’re a group with classroom experience, community ties and higher retention likelihood.

There, school districts are required to offer foundational training — ranging from 14 to 28 hours — directly to paraeducators.

In West Virginia, a new law now allows districts to count full-time behavior interventionists working in one or two classrooms toward meeting the required number of aides or paraprofessionals in K-3 classrooms.

Tooley noted that Pennsylvania and Alabama are experimenting with “menu-style” licensing flexibility — allowing candidates to demonstrate qualification through various combinations of GPA and test scores, rather than rigid cutoffs.

“These are people already in schools, often from the same cultural or linguistic backgrounds as students,” Tooley said. “They’re more likely to succeed and to stay.”

Low pay

A 2024 national survey by the EdWeek Research Center found that public school teachers are increasingly reporting declines in mental health, job satisfaction and classroom stability. Seventy percent of teachers recommended student mental health interventions, and nearly half said schools lack enough counselors, psychologists and social workers.

As mental well-being has worsened, the share of public school teachers who are very satisfied with their jobs has also declined by 2 percentage points from the previous year, to 18%, according to the survey, which was conducted by the EdWeek Research Center on behalf of Merrimack College.

While teacher wellness supports remain limited, educators say improvements in pay and student discipline are the most needed changes.

To entice passionate but burned out educators from leaving the workforce, several states have raised minimum teacher pay. Arkansas boosted salaries to $50,000 statewide, and South Carolina raised starting pay to $47,000 this year, giving it a boost to $48,500 next school year. South Dakota enacted a $45,000 minimum with yearly increases, and penalties for districts that fail to comply by 2026. Connecticut advanced a bill setting a $63,450 salary floor, while Indiana and others are eyeing further increases.

At the federal level, the proposed American Teacher Act seeks to establish a national $60,000 minimum salary for teachers at a qualifying school to boost recruitment and retention across the country. The bill, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Florida Democrat, remains in committee.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com.

The post As teacher burnout deepens, states scramble to fill school job vacancies appeared first on westvirginiawatch.com

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The article discusses the ongoing teacher shortage in the U.S., highlighting the struggles faced by states in attracting and retaining educators, particularly post-pandemic. The piece reflects a concern for the challenges teachers face, such as low pay, increasing job dissatisfaction, and political battles over curriculum. It also mentions various states’ attempts to address the issue, including changes to teacher certification and pay. While the article includes diverse viewpoints, it leans toward highlighting the struggles in public education, particularly emphasizing the need for more support and investment, which aligns with a Center-Left perspective on education reform and policy.

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Christian's Morning Forecast: Scattered Rain Through the Work Week

News from the South - West Virginia News Feed

Christian's Morning Forecast: Scattered Rain Through the Work Week

Published

1 day ago

May 21, 2025

Staff Editor

www.youtube.com – WOAY TV – 2025-05-21 06:29:46

SUMMARY: Christian’s Morning Forecast: Scattered Rain Through the Work Week

Storm Watch meteorologist Christian Boler reports cooler temperatures this week, with highs around 72°F and lows in the mid-60s. Bluefield currently has cloudy skies and light rain, with showers moving east and some developing later today due to low pressure near the Great Lakes. Rainfall totals vary, with about ¼ to ½ inch expected locally. A slight severe weather risk affects parts of Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, and local northern counties. Rain continues through the workweek, drying on Saturday before more rain returns Sunday through Wednesday. Temperatures rise back into the 70s by Tuesday.

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News from the South - West Virginia News Feed

Rapidly expanding school voucher programs pinch state budgets

Published

1 day ago

May 21, 2025

Staff Editor

westvirginiawatch.com – Kevin Hardy – 2025-05-21 05:00:00

by Kevin Hardy, West Virginia Watch
May 21, 2025

In submitting her updated budget proposal in March, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs lamented the rising costs of the state’s school vouchers program that directs public dollars to pay private school tuition.

Characterizing vouchers as an “entitlement program,” Hobbs said the state could spend more than $1 billion subsidizing private education in the upcoming fiscal year. The Democratic governor said those expenses could crowd out other budget priorities, including disability programs and pay raises for firefighters and state troopers.

It’s a dilemma that some budget experts fear will become more common nationwide as the costs of school choice measures mount across the states, reaching billions of dollars each year.

“School vouchers are increasingly eating up state budgets in a way that I don’t think is sustainable long term,” said Whitney Tucker, director of state fiscal policy research at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think tank that advocates for left-leaning tax policies.

Vouchers and scholarship programs, which use taxpayer money to cover private school tuition, are part of the wider school choice movement that also includes charter schools and other alternatives to public schools.

Opponents have long warned about vouchers draining resources from public education as students move from public schools to private ones. But research into several programs has shown many voucher recipients already were enrolled in private schools. That means universal vouchers could drive up costs by creating two parallel education systems — both funded by taxpayers.

School vouchers are increasingly eating up state budgets in a way that I don’t think is sustainable long term.

– Whitney Tucker, director of state fiscal policy research at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

In Arizona, state officials reported most private school students receiving vouchers in the first two years of the expanded program were not previously enrolled in public schools. In fiscal year 2024, more than half the state’s 75,000 voucher recipients were previously enrolled in private schools or were being homeschooled.

“Vouchers don’t shift costs — they add costs,” Joshua Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University who studies the issue, recently told Stateline. “Most voucher recipients were already in private schools, meaning states are paying for education they previously didn’t have to fund.”

Voucher proponents, though, say those figures can be misleading. Arizona, like other states with recent expansions, previously had more modest voucher programs. So some kids who were already enrolled in private schools could have already been receiving state subsidies.

In addition to increasing competition, supporters say the programs can actually save taxpayer dollars by delivering education at a lower overall cost than traditional public schools.

One thing is certain: With a record number of students receiving subsidies to attend private schools, vouchers are quickly creating budget concerns for some state leaders.

The rising costs of school choice measures come after years of deep cuts to income taxes in many states, leaving them with less money to spend. An end of pandemic-era aid and potential looming cuts to federal support also have created widespread uncertainty about state budgets.

Skyrocketing Hope Scholarship price tag, now around $100M, a concern for WV lawmakers making budget

“We’re seeing a number of things that are creating a sort of perfect storm from a fiscal perspective in the states,” said Tucker, of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Last year, Arizona leaders waded through an estimated $1.3 billion budget shortfall. Budget experts said the voucher program was responsible for hundreds of millions of that deficit.

A new universal voucher program in Texas is expected to cost $1 billion over its next two-year budget cycle — a figure that could balloon to nearly $5 billion by 2030, according to a legislative fiscal note.

Earlier this year, Wyoming Republican Gov. Mark Gordon signed a bill expanding the state’s voucher program. But last week, he acknowledged his own “substantial concerns” about the state’s ability to fund vouchers and its public education obligations under the constitution.

“I think the legislature’s got a very tall task to understand how they’re going to be able to fund all of these things,” he said in an interview with WyoFile.

Voucher proponents, who have been active at the state level for years, are gaining new momentum with support from President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.

In January, Trump ordered federal agencies to allow states, tribes and military families to access federal money for private K-12 education through education savings accounts, voucher programs or tax credits.

Last week, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee voted in favor of making $20 billion available over the next four years for a federal school voucher program. Part of broader work on a bill to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, the measure would need a simple majority in the House and the Senate to pass.

Hope Scholarship’s accelerating price tag sparks debate in WV House, $97M in funding approved

Martin Lueken, the director of the Fiscal Research and Education Center at EdChoice, a nonprofit that advocates for school choice measures, argues school choice measures can actually deliver savings to taxpayers.

Lueken said vouchers are not to blame for state budget woes. He said public school systems for years have increased spending faster than inflation. And he noted that school choice measures make up a small share of overall state spending — nationally about 0.3% of total state expenditures in states with school choice, he said.

“Public schooling remains one of the largest line items in state budgets,” he said in an interview. “They are still the dominant provider of K-12 education, and certainly looking at the education pie, they still receive the lion’s share.

“It’s not a choice problem. I would say that it’s a problem with the status quo and the public school system,” he said.

Washington, D.C., and 35 states offer some school choice programs, according to EdChoice. That includes 18 states with voucher programs so expansive that virtually all students can participate regardless of income.

But Lueken said framing vouchers as a new entitlement program is misleading. That’s because all students, even the wealthiest, have always been entitled to a public education — whether they’ve chosen to attend free public schools or private ones that charge tuition.

“At the end of the day, the thing that matters most above dollars are students and families,” he said. “Research is clear that competition works. Public schools have responded in very positive ways when they are faced with increased competitive pressure from choice programs.”

Public school advocates say funding both private and public schools is untenable.

In Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers are considering a major voucher expansion that would alter the funding structure for vouchers, potentially putting more strain on the state’s general fund.

The state spent about $629 million on its four voucher programs during the 2024-2025 school year, according to the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials, which represents employees in school district finance, human resources and leadership.

The association warns proposed legislation could exacerbate problems with the “unaffordable parallel school systems” in place now by shifting more private schooling costs from parents of those students to state taxpayers at large.

Such expansion “could create the conditions for even greater funding challenges for Wisconsin’s traditional public schools and the state budget as a whole,” the association’s research director wrote in a paper on the issue.

In Arizona, Hobbs originally sought to eliminate the universal voucher program — a nonstarter in the Republican-controlled legislature. She has since proposed shrinking the program by placing income limits that would disqualify the state’s wealthiest families.

That idea also faced Republican opposition.

Legislators are now pushing to enshrine access to vouchers in the state constitution.

Marisol Garcia, president of the Arizona Education Association, the state’s 20,000-member teachers union, noted that vouchers and public education funds are both sourced from the general fund.

“So it almost immediately started to impact public services,” she said of the universal voucher program.

While the union says vouchers have led to cutbacks of important resources such as counselors in public schools, Garcia said the sweeping program also affects the state’s ability to fund other services like housing, transportation and health care.

“Every budget cycle becomes where can we cut in order to essentially feed this out-of-control program?” she said.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

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The post Rapidly expanding school voucher programs pinch state budgets appeared first on westvirginiawatch.com

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This content provides a detailed examination of the growing costs and budgetary challenges posed by school voucher programs, highlighting concerns chiefly raised by Democratic officials, public school advocates, and left-leaning policy experts like those at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The article gives substantial weight to the fiscal strains vouchers impose on public education funding, a topic commonly emphasized by progressive and center-left commentators. Although it includes perspectives from voucher proponents and Republican lawmakers, these views are typically framed in contrast to the concerns about budget sustainability and public school impact, which dominate the narrative. Overall, the piece leans slightly left of center by focusing more on the critiques of voucher programs and their implications for public education funding.

News from the South - West Virginia News Feed

Trump Defends Medicaid in Closed Door Capitol Hill Meeting

Published

2 days ago

May 20, 2025

Staff Editor

www.youtube.com – WCHS Eyewitness News – 2025-05-20 19:25:10

SUMMARY: Donald Trump urged House Republicans on Capitol Hill to move forward with a major policy bill and warned that failure to do so could lead to primary challenges. While some Republicans, including Rep. Ralph Norman, praised Trump’s message, others remain skeptical. Trump expressed frustration over the slow progress and emphasized the importance of passing his legislative priorities, including tax cuts and a continuation of the 2017 tax cuts. He warned Republicans that opposing the bill could result in political consequences. Despite his push, some Republicans still oppose the bill over concerns about deficit spending.

WASHINGTON (TNND) — President Donald Trump attended a House GOP meeting on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning to try and unify the party and push his “big, beautiful bill” forward as the 1,116-page agenda is at risk of collapsing ahead of planned votes this week.

#TrumpOnTheHill #OneBigBeautifulBill #GOPMeeting #TrumpTaxCuts #BorderSecurity #MedicaidDebate #HouseRepublicans #ConservativeAgenda #TrumpPolicyPush #CapitolHillPolitics #Trump2025 #ImmigrationReform #RepublicanUnity #BidenVsTrump #MedicaidProtection
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