With the increase in teacher shortages across the U.S., a new player is beginning to emerge. It is the community and technical college, which number nearly 1,200.
Florida has been leading the way with its community colleges in addressing the issue by offering bachelor’s degrees in education. In addition, the state’s ever-increasing teacher shortages created a demand that has created an additional pipeline of community colleges preparing new teachers.
During the 2022-2023 school year, every state is wrestling with significant teacher shortages. A state-by-state analysis by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University posted in January shows that there were more than 36,000 vacancies for k-12 teachers. In addition, the institute identified 163,000 more persons teaching needed to be qualified to be teachers.
Expanding the baccalaureate pipeline
Several other states have started approving their community and technical colleges to offer a limited number of teacher preparation programs. In addition, two states — Washington and Oregon — have recently started programs in their highest-need areas for teachers.
Virginia’s shortages have reached a crisis level and a call for community colleges to help. The number of shortages in Virginia was highlighted when announcing that 10,900 teachers had left the field prior to the 2022 fall opening of schools. This was significantly more leaving than entering the workforce. The state brought in 7,208 new hires with first-time licenses.
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Virginia proposed new legislation last month to allow its 23-community college system to begin offering baccalaureates in teaching. Its newly presented legislation will have to cross the hurdles of cooperation with the state’s higher education system, obtain university support and work with several other state agencies. It is estimated that the process will take most of one year before a final decision can be determined.
Every state needs to look at the movement and support what is now available to assist in developing baccalaureates in education at community colleges. The Community College Baccalaureate Degree Association‘ is the most efficient. The organization is ready to help individual and/or state community college leaders.
Outlining the challenges
The most significant need for teachers continues to be in rural and urban school districts. In addition, many university programs have canceled their teacher preparation programs due to low enrollments and/or the costs of the programs.
Another major challenge in attracting new teacher candidates is the continued low salaries. Many businesses and other work-related industries offer more than the $35,000 to $40,000 beginning salaries in many states. The Teacher Salary Project is working hard in Washington, D.C., to pass legislation for $60,000 beginning salaries.
School districts are working to ‘grow their own’ future teachers. In addition, they are looking for young secondary school students who may consider teaching as a career choice. Still, there continue to be few new pipelines developed to bring up potential teachers. A community college pipeline can greatly help carry these newly identified future students and many others to the completion of a bachelor’s degree in education.
Related article: A central role in reducing K-12 teacher shortage
The nearly 1,200 community colleges in the country are strategically located near every k-12 school district. As a result, they can offer the option of low tuition, the ability to live at home (much less costly than moving to university towns and cities) and are located in both rural and urban areas. They can also attract an adult population to these programs as they have in their one-year certificate and associate degree programs over the years.
Providing a community college pipeline is also economical for students. When graduating its first group of baccalaureate students at community colleges in non-education programs, California reported that students in these programs, on average, paid $10,500 in tuition and fees for all four years. This was a significant consideration for almost all of these graduates.
Community colleges also are known for serving a diverse population. Tapping into the two-year college system can help K-12 systems ensure that they too have a diverse workforce that serves the needs of an increasingly diverse student body.
A call for action
Taking a year or more to move legislation is a long time when hundreds of thousands of our young school-age students have already been without qualified teachers for several years. Developing new teacher pipelines can take several years to develop fully. The process starts with identifying students to enter and seeing them complete all requirements, including licensure, before being placed in classrooms. The K-12 students across the country do not have this number of years to wait.
Community college boards of trustees and their administrators are a strong force to get involved in promoting community college baccalaureate in education across all states. It is also time to link up with K-12 school boards, administrators, educational leaders and political leaders at the state and national levels to create the necessary action to make this happen.
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(From left) Dr. Hans Andrews is the Distinguished Fellow in Community College Leadership through Olney Central College (Illinois). He is a former president of the college. He started the first dual-credit program in the country between community colleges and secondary schools.
Dr. William “Bill” Marzano is a former academic administrator at Waubonsee Community College (Illinois). He is an adjunct faculty member in management for Aurora University (Illinois) and a former psychology professor at Illinois Valley Community College.
Dr. Greg Rockhold has served on the board of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, president of the New Mexico Coalition of School Administrators and executive director of the New Mexico Association of Secondary School Principals.