Overview:
While alternative teacher certification can diversify the educator workforce and address staffing shortages, policymakers must also confront the inequitable distribution of experienced and credentialed teachers—particularly in charter schools serving marginalized communities—to ensure every student has access to a highly qualified educator.
You may have heard recently that there is a teacher shortage. You may also have heard that this shortage is leading some states and their districts to take drastic measures to fill classrooms.
This in turn is prompting many district and state agencies to reconsider their qualifications for teacher credentialing. For example, some districts are offering alternative credentialing, and some are hiring non-credentialed folks, helping them to become credentialed while on the job. It’s always been a hot topic of debate in educational circles and is still right now. Some argue that one of the major benefits of offering alternative credentialing measures is that this helps districts hire a more diverse teaching force. I agree. In fact, the benefit of having a more diverse teaching force, as a result of incentivizing alternative credential programs, was an idea that I shared recently with Edsource’s podcast, Education Beat.
But alternative credentialing measures do have drawbacks. Data clearly shows that when non-credentialed teachers are hired, they disproportionately teach in communities of color, in low socio-economic neighborhoods like where I teach. Statewide, for example, there are 40% less credentialed teachers in Title 1 schools than in more affluent schools. Non-credentialed teachers are also disproportionately higher in rural areas. To a 28 year veteran teacher and former parent of children in a Title 1 school here in southeast San Diego, this data is alarming to me and the community I care about. But not necessarily for the reasons you may think.
Why? Because that data is hiding some trends about our educational system that any parent in San Diego or any other city in the US needs to understand. Here’s why.
Recent data shows that large districts like SDUSD have minimal or non-existent credentialing discrepancies despite the 40% disparity statewide. Here in San Diego for example, 94.4% of the schools in the richest communities in SDUSD have properly credentialed teachers, while 92.2% of the poorest schools have properly credentialed teachers too. In fact, in large districts throughout the state, this is typical. Exceptions do exist, like in Oakland Unified for example. But even in LAUSD, the state’s largest school district, there are slightly more credentialed teachers in impoverished neighborhoods than in their richer counterparts.
Considering that years ago, large districts like SDUSD and LAUSD had massive disparities in credentialing, one might be tempted to think that a credentialing gap no longer exists, or that we’ve at least made significant progress.
I would beg to differ.
To understand why credentialing is still an issue for communities like where I teach, you must understand that some things have stayed the same in our school system for decades and some things have not.
What hasn’t changed is that public school veteran teachers consistently and predictably move during their tenure from poorer schools to richer schools, and they do so en masse. Large districts like SDUSD and LAUSD provide a perfect terrain for this migration simply because of the number of other options for employment within the district. Here in San Diego for instance, data throughout the years confirms what my colleagues and I have referred to as the “North of 8 Flight.” This describes a historically predictable migration of more veteran teachers leaving southeast San Diego to teach in more affluent neighborhoods north of the 8 Freeway.
Therefore, despite the fact that schools like mine have virtually the same proportion of credentialed teachers as those more affluent schools north of the 8 Freeway, schools like mine still have a far less veteran staff. And while veteran teachers still continue to leave poorer schools, data no longer supports the notion that teachers here are less credentialed than those at more affluent schools in other SDUSD areas.
So then where are all the non-credentialed teachers?
Here’s a hint: As recently as 2019, there were 1100 of them in California charter schools.
Because what has changed in California is that charter schools are now operating alongside public schools, especially in communities of color. This trend is spreading across the country now, too.
And when they open up shop, they aren’t hiring near enough highly-qualified teachers. In fact, over 25 states do not even require charter schools to hire a majority of credentialed teachers in the first place.
What therefore worries me most is not that my particular public school is going to suddenly receive an influx of uncredentialed teachers. Nor do I wish to stifle measures to incentivize alternative credentialing programs, especially for teachers of color and folks from the communities they wish to serve as teachers. We need them more than ever.
But what does worry me greatly is that my neighborhood, the families and children I do not serve who choose a charter will receive an influx of uncredentialed teachers at certain charter schools which open and close around us year after year. Most of the schools competing with us here at my Title 1 public school currently advertise on billboards, advertise on radio stations, so much so that in one case, their advertising partner bragged about their success. One school, Altus, even spent a half a million dollar on AI robots. These advertisements are relentless. On a recent drive to lunch with teacher friends, we came across three billboards, heard Hillary on 91x promote a mostly online charter school, and drove past two more charter schools located in a shopping mall and on a former public school site respectively. I know personally how these draw students out of the public school system with promises that are not always kept. I also know that it costs a lot of money to advertise on billboards and the radio, money that could be spent on hiring more credentialed teachers, instead.
Unless we begin a real conversation nationally about what this dynamic is actually doing to our marginalized communities, like mine here at Chollas View in southeast San Diego, these charter schools will continue to bring more and more teachers that have no where near the credentialing I do, only to see them migrate to more affluent schools after gaining valuable experience.
Why does the credentialing conversation matter? Because every child in the US deserves a qualified teacher. But they also deserve one who wants to stay and be their teacher where they live in the first place.
