Earning the certification for basic teaching skills will let her work as a paraprofessional, or teaching aide, right out of high school, allowing her to earn more money and gain more experience than other students. 

“I’ve always wanted to teach special ed, like, it’s just my passion,” said Manzo, a junior at Valley Forge High School just outside Cleveland. “With the ParaPro certification, I could become a para directly out of high school. You can’t beat that.”

Manzo very deliberately chose to pursue the certification because of the doors it would open for her. It’s the ideal states aim for when they promote credential programs in high schools. 

But the system isn’t working as well for students in other fields. Many students are spending their high school years earning credentials that won’t help them land a job. 

The number of students earning career credentials has exploded nationally as states and schools increasingly encourage students to pursue them — tripling in some states over the last few years.

But experts warn that not all credentials are created equal.

Researchers are finding massive mismatches between the credentials students are earning and what employers seek. With thousands of non-degree credentials to choose from, it’s a challenge to sort through the chaos and find the programs teaching valuable skills that lead to good jobs and good pay. Guidance for schools and students is spotty and riddled with gaps. Consider:

• Students , such as national basic construction skills and Occupational Safety and Health Administration safety certificates, the partnership between the Burning Glass Institute, a leading employment research nonprofit, and ExcelinED, a right-leaning education policy nonprofit, reported in 2022.
• The credentials don’t always lead to higher pay. Just one of every eight career credentials available today leads to better wages than without them, Burning Glass estimates. 
• Meanwhile, the researchers also of students earning credentials employers want, such as Microsoft Office Specialist certifications, or nursing, electrical and commercial drivers’ licenses.
• Some of the mismatch is because just over a quarter of all high school credentials only provide workplace readiness skills, such as digital and financial literacy, rather than technical certificates for things like auto repair, construction or welding.
• There are only a few resources available on hiring and wages that can help students and schools assess whether a credential has real value.

before steering schools and students toward them, Advance CTE, the association of state leaders of career technical education, reported this summer.

How does your state review credentials for high school students?

Though states often give lists of available credentials to schools to consider, Advance CTE found, they don’t always find out whether companies are hiring in that field, or which credentials matter when it comes to hiring or pay. 

Some states are even creating paths for students to receive their high school diplomas by earning career credentials without carefully evaluating their demand from employers, AdvanceCTE and Burning Glass data shows.

Not one state is closely aligning the credentials that schools offer to employer needs, according to ExcelinED and Burning Glass — and just 16 states are moderately aligned.

ExcelinED earlier this year called the low rate of students earning in-demand credentials “more than just a missed opportunity.” 

“It’s a potential waste of time and resources for learners and education systems,” . “Credentials that don’t lead to viable employment opportunities fail to open doors for students, leaving them unprepared for the realities of the job market and potentially dead-end opportunities.”

This results in too many students earning credentials for jobs in certain fields while too few are earning credentials for others.

“Seven out of eight credentials are not resulting in wage gains for credential earners,” said Emily Passias, deputy executive director of Advance CTE. “That’s substantial.”

Passias said she is concerned that states and schools could be “over-identifying what holds value in their credential lists” while students and schools spend time and money pursuing them.

“Getting this identification and approval of credentials right helps produce a strong return on investment, both for learners and for states that are aiming to… ensure that learners have the skills and the credentials that they need to get the good jobs that are most important in their state,” Passias said. 

Students in high school vocational programs, now known as Career Technical Education, have traditionally sought licenses or apprenticeships in specific fields. But for the majority of students, especially those headed to college, their school’s diploma was the only credential they ever sought in high school.

But CTE programs are expanding as demand from companies for people with specialized work skills has increased. High school and college diplomas, long viewed as a catch-all verification of a student’s skills and aptitude, aren’t carrying the same weight as before.

So there has been a movement toward students to demonstrate some work skills even if they’re going to college. And there is increased urgency for students not going to college to leave high school with some verifiable skills so they can find work that pays a living wage after graduating.

States are doing an uneven job helping districts and students make the best decisions of which credentials to spend time and money on, Advance CTE found in its Credentials of Value report in July. Among its findings:

• Only 34 states have state agencies that formally review and approve credentials for schools, leaving 16 states that don’t.

• Just 34 states asked employers what credentials they recommend.

• And less than half looked at employer demand for a credential (24 states) or wage data for the kinds of jobs a credential would let students step into (23 states)

The ultimate goal — tracking the jobs students land and how much they earn after receiving a given credential — is still difficult for states. Only eight  — Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, South Dakota —are able to look at that data, Advance CTE reported.

Even where states take many of the steps Advance CTE is tracking to verify the value of credentials, there are still challenges. The experience of Ohio, one of the highest rated states by Credentials Matter, is a good example.

Ohio actively consults employers in creating and annually updating its list of industry recognized credentials students can pursue. 

Ohio goes a step further by giving each of those credentials a value rating that students can use to earn their diploma. Each approved credential is given a “point” value so students can accumulate enough credential points to graduate through one of several pathways.

Ohio also adds another guide by creating a second list of credentials of extra-value, then awards schools extra money for each of these earned through its Innovative Workforce Incentive Program (IWIP).

But even after taking those three steps, Ohio still has challenges. Students and schools are still gravitating toward credentials that are not in demand, in part, some believe, because they can be an easy way to satisfy state requirements to earn diplomas.

“What appears to be happening in Ohio’s urban districts is some kind of distorted form of CTE in which low-achieving students are getting routed into less rigorous IRC (Industry Recognized Credentials) programs to get them diplomas at the last minute,” the Fordham Institute’s Aaron Churchill“This does nothing for the students who receive certificates that have nothing to do with their career aspirations and have little value in the workforce.“

Though the state IWIP list is supposed to guide students toward valuable credentials, the ones students earn the most  – OSHA safety, CPR, retail and customer service certificates  – are not on it and have low employer demand. Of the 141,000 approved industry credentials Ohio students earned last year, only 22,000 — 16% — are from the IWIP list.

Ohio districts also varied greatly in how much they steered students to higher value credentials. The Cleveland school district, for example, had its 34,600 students earn just 23 IWIP credentials last school year. Students at the similarly-sized Columbus and Cincinnati districts did 10 times better, earning more than 300 and more than 200 respectively.

Cleveland trailed even the suburban Parma school district, just over a quarter Cleveland’s size, 145 to 23.

Cleveland students instead followed the state trend, just more intensely, by earning  less intense and less in-demand credentials that offer few career advantages.

Hundreds of students in Cleveland completed CPR certificates and the from the National Retail Federation, which require students just to pass written tests with no workplace training 

ExcelinED found no employers in Ohio seeking the CPR training from job applicants and just three seeking the RISEUP certificates.The National Retail Federation declined to discuss the low demand for these credentials with The 74.

The two RISEUP credentials, however, give students enough “points” when combined to satisfy an Ohio graduation requirement.

“Students can bundle them to earn a diploma,” . “And yet, according to job posting data, neither credential is in demand by employers.”

Selena Florence, Cleveland’s chief academic officer, said the district hopes to increase the  number of students earning in-demand credentials under a plan the district is developing to start next fall. She would not say when that plan would put Cleveland on par with Cincinnati or Columbus, saying only that she hopes it will be soon.

“We have students who are walking out the door, out of the high school, without needed credentials,” Florence said. “So absolutely, it is a concern.”

She bristled when asked if Cleveland awards so many CPR and RISEUP credentials mostly as a way to help students graduate easily instead of preparing students for careers.

“I don’t see those things as being mutually exclusive,” she said. “So yes, they are used to help kids get diplomas, and yes, they’re used to help kids get prepared for a career.”

“They may not be of value as the state defines it, but they are,” she said. “They are credentials that we think kids need. Kids need to know how to do CPR. Kids need, if they’re going into a service industry, they would need the service credential. It would be a value.”

In neighboring Parma, Chuck Caldwell, who heads district CTE programs, says the district still offers the RISEUP credentials, but is steering students much more toward Microsoft Office credentials that employers want.. 

Caldwell and school staff said the RISEUP training is useful as a way to teach students basic workplace skills. And several local stores, including Wal Mart and Target, pay students with the credentials $1 more per hour. But Caldwell also conceded that they prepare students for entry-level jobs more than a career and are sometimes used mostly as a handy way to satisfy diploma requirements.

“I do see some value in it,” Caldwell said. “But I will be honest. In some ways, it’s a way to meet a bureaucratic end goal too.”

He also stressed that RISE UP and OSHA certificates may look like they have little demand, but still hold value as building blocks of a larger training program.

OSHA certifications, for example, may not show up in job ads, but the school requires students to obtain them at the start of all CTE programs so students don’t hurt themselves while learning. Apprenticeships or jobs will require OSHA training of new hires too if they haven’t done it already.

RISEUP credentials can also be a building block. A student in the Parma schools this fall, for example, is combining that training with health care classes for a career in health management.

Other CTE school leaders in Ohio agree judging a credential just on employer demand isn’t the only way.

David Mangas, superintendent of the Cuyahoga Valley Career Center south of Cleveland, said he strongly believes some classes and credentials should be focused on skills employers need, but others can be starting points for students to explore a field, learn some skills and decide whether to go further.

“They’re trying to see what interests those students have, not necessarily get them ready for that skilled position right out of high school,” Mangas said. 

Jeremy Varner, the deputy director of the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, said Ohio is reviewing its credential recommendations and point values for graduation requirements over the next year. Now that a few efforts have been in place for a few years, it’s time to reassess and refine the state’s approach.

Ohio’s plan largely follows what Advance CTE and Credentials Matter are recommending — gathering the best data to see the return on investment for each credential and really weighing what can work best for students.

“We’ve had explosive growth in industry credentials,” Varner said. “All the policy structures are working. They’re doing exactly what we intended, which is to get students more industry credentials. Now we just need to bring more focus to those that have the most value to students and employers.”

announced on Thursday a new initiative called “FutureReady States” with the goal of increasing access to education and credential training that “pays off in the labor market.” Lumina — a private foundation based in Indianapolis — and partner organizations will do that by offering states technical assistance and policy guidance, according to a press release.

In 12 states, including North Carolina, Lumina will make investments “to improve credential quality and learning outcomes,” the release said. , one of five intermediary organizations, will work with the foundation in North Carolina.

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The other states included in the initiative are Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

Part of the initiative will be promoting short-term credential programs, which Lumina says have become pathways into industries such as health care, manufacturing, information technology, and logistics.

Kermit Kaleba, Lumina’s strategy director for credentials of value, said in a press briefing that businesses and learners are interested in quick, short-term credentials that provide the necessary skills to be successful. He defined short-term credential programs as those lasting between eight weeks and one year.

He also said there is reason for caution: Since short-term credentials haven’t received much federal or state funding in the past, not much research has gone into the upsides and downsides.

Nevertheless, they are receiving attention — and funding — now.

“States are spending money on these credentials,” Kaleba said. “We are making these investments — our job at Lumina is to help states think about how we maximize the value of these investments.”

States have invested, and so has the federal government. While the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” recently signed into law by President Donald Trump, cut Pell Grant funding overall, it also to short-term job training programs.

In North Carolina, short-term credential programs are already funded through a .

Lumina will be partnering with , which is part of the North Carolina Workforce Credentials Council. The council also includes the Office of the Governor, the North Carolina Community Colleges System, the Department of Public Instruction, and more organizations.

According to myFutureNC, the FutureReady States initiative will build on the work of the North Carolina Workforce Credentials Council.

Cecilia Holden, president and CEO of myFutureNC, said in a press release that the initiative could contribute to the goal her organization has already set.

“Success, to us, means building a system where every credential earned helps close the skills gap for employers—and where every learner has a clear, supported path to economic mobility,” said Holden. “What excites us most is the initiative’s potential to accelerate progress toward our statewide goal: ensuring that two million North Carolinians ages 25 to 44 hold an industry-valued college degree or short-term credential by 2030.”

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

The American high school is broken. The pandemic underscored just how broken. American teens are—as a September 2023 Gallup poll shows—disengaged, stressed, and questioning the value of high school and college. At the same time, they are hungry to make a difference in the world and to use new technologies and ideas toward that end. 

In 2013, Ted Sizer wrote a book called The New American High School. Large national foundations invested in smaller, more personalized high schools. The pandemic made clear it’s past time to finally remake high school, but with an eye toward the future. 

Rather than seek to provide a comprehensive set of learning experiences under one roof, the new American high school would connect students to meaningful work in their communities and to expert knowledge around the globe.

Rather than dumb down concepts or activities to make them easier for teenagers, it would support young people to do meaningful work that makes real contributions and leads to credentials that hold weight in the adult world.

Rather than sort students into tracks or marshaling all of them toward a single objective, it would provide every student adult guidance and technological support to understand their own conception of a good life, and provide them with the support, connections, knowledge, and skills to pursue that life—and to change course where necessary. 

Rather than focus on a centuries-old curriculum and memorization, it would recognize the transformative forces of AI technology, climate change, and geopolitics and prepare students to thrive, collaborate, and innovate in a rapidly changing world. Yes, students would still study Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Newton, but in a more relevant, contemporary context. 

Arizona State University’s Michael Crow conceived something similar for the postsecondary world—the New American University. These institutions would be designed for access rather than exclusivity, and would develop knowledge that could improve student’s communities and address global challenges. 

New career and technical education (CTE) programs popping up across the country provide a great starting point. They’re building tighter integrations between high school and postsecondary education, delivering industry-recognized credentials on the way to graduation, resourcing students through college via learn-and-earn programs, and developing students’ social capital to strengthen their support circles and professional networks. 

Seamless and permeable pathways

It is key that the New American High School does not place students into tracks or find them in dead-ends. Instead of “tracks,” there should be a seamless and permeable set of pathways between high school, college, and career. 

To provide a few examples:

• Colorado’s Homegrown Talent Initiative is a grant-funded program designed to help rural districts create career-relevant learning experiences aligned to the needs and aspirations of their local economies. Participating districts have redefined student graduation requirements, designed new courses, integrated career exploration into existing classes, and created new learning opportunities via internships with local industry and dual enrollment in local higher education institutions. 

• Seckinger High School in Gwinnett County, Georgia, is the district’s first artificial intelligence themed high school and is part of a broader district vision to foster excellence and a sense of belonging in every school. Once the school opens, students will receive a college preparatory curriculum that is taught through the lens of artificial intelligence. Students will also be able to pursue an education in developing artificial intelligence. 

• Indiana’s Purdue Polytechnic High School is a public charter school network designed to prepare students for careers in the STEM fields. The school implements hands-on and project-based learning, industry and higher ed partnerships, and a flexible and personalized approach. Students leave high school with college credit, in-demand industry credentials, as well as preferred admission to nine out of the 10 colleges at Purdue University. 

• Another Indiana charter school, GEO Academies, offers a College Immersion Program, a hyper personalized dual enrollment program where high school students take college classes on the college campus of their choice beginning as early as the ninth grade. GEO pays for everything and provides the academic, social, and emotional supports so that kids learn real-life skills and grow the confidence necessary to earn college degrees—and a path to escaping poverty—before they graduate from high school. When they are on the high school campus, GEO students can engage in direct, teacher-led instruction, independent learning and practice, and teacher-assisted small group instruction. 

• At the state level, Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, and Virginia are moving toward more coherent state-wide career pathways, using federal funds and industry partnerships to create a more permeable path between high school, college, and career. (Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera elaborate on their states’ work in essays on pages 76 and 39, respectively.)

There is plenty of evidence that the current American high school is outdated and irrelevant. The best source of data is coming from students themselves. Adolescents report feeling isolated, bored, and disengaged in school. In this volume, we report plenty of evidence that they are calling for change and they are voting with their feet by failing to attend school or dropping out to get a job in larger numbers than ever. 

Despite the very obvious need to update and refresh secondary education, high schools are notoriously resistant to change. Shifting existing curriculum, coursework, instructional strategies, counseling, industry partnerships, and teacher expertise are all onerous prospects. What’s more, the old model of high school is hard-wired: core graduation course requirements are geared toward a “college for all” mentality. Do students intent on pursuing a career in music, for instance, really need to take calculus? Schedules do not easily shift to accommodate a student who must leave during the day for an apprenticeship. If a student wants to take an online pre engineering course in place of a course offered by their high school, they must pay for it themselves. 

Much of schools’ inability to change stems from outdated state policy. State teacher licensing laws often prevent would-be teachers with industry expertise from teaching credit-earning classes. State graduation requirements often do not allow students to count industry credentials toward graduation. Funding models are outdated and assume high school students will receive all of their education in one building. 

A New National Initiative

To overcome these and many other barriers, we need a new national initiative for the New American High School. We need more states to follow the lead of vanguard states such as Colorado and Virginia—and for these states to continue to push for lasting changes to the core aims and structures of their schools. 

The growing movement to add or update career and technical education is a good start, but ultimately, career focus needs to grow rapidly from small, peripheral programs to a widespread, core element of all secondary education. 

As the other essays in this report suggest, we need to start thinking, talking, and acting bigger. Career preparation in high school is essential for every student. At the very least, students should leave high school with a guarantee that they have mastered the core skills the business and nonprofit sectors say they will need for the middle-class jobs of the future.

We can do this, but the business community, philanthropies, governors, and state school chiefs must lead. Here are some first steps that could make a real difference:

• Create a national council on the New American High School to set national goals and guide federal and state funding strategies 
• Support more state- and district-level initiatives for business-education partnerships like Colorado, Louisiana, and Virginia have done 
• Incentivize every state to collect data across states on long-term outcomes like Indiana has done
• Build a global network of schools and school districts that are committed to the New American High School
• Create a national research center on the New American High School to amass evidence on innovations, best practices, and policies to support schools and states that want to re-tool their high schools 

Tinkering around the edges of American high schools won’t ensure that every student graduates on a viable pathway to a family-sustaining career. We don’t need to remake career and technical education—we need to remake high school. 

Skeptics will understandably ask: how is this possible when school systems are struggling just to keep their heads above water, grappling with record levels of mental health and behavior challenges and declining achievement? 

My response to the skeptics: high schools across the country began this transformation before or even during the pandemic. They did so because they know there is no alternative but to shift toward the future. They know they must catch kids up, but they also know that the best way to do so is to engage them in deep, meaningful, and relevant ways. With the right help from the federal government, states, businesses, and philanthropies, this is doable. 

But the first step on any road to recovery is to admit that there’s a problem. Given the reality of the past few years, can anyone really argue that the American high school has not reached its bottom?

See more from the Center on Reinventing Public Education and its .

I’ve always believed that education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for life success. A quality education leads to greater personal earnings, better health outcomes, a stronger economy, and lower community crime rates, among many other benefits. For example, bachelor’s and associate degree holders take home median weekly earnings of $1,334 and $963, respectively, compared to $809 for their peers with only a high school degree, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But as the global economy rapidly evolves, we must rethink the way we educate students and our workforce. A fragmented approach—where high schools, postsecondary institutions, and employers all work in their own silos— shortchanges everyone.

We need to create more seamless pathways from school to careers. In Colorado, for example, 91.4% of jobs that can support a family of three require postsecondary education or some form of training or certification in high school beyond diploma requirements. Conventional four-year degrees alone cannot solve this problem, as more and more jobs value skills over a formal college diploma.

Blurring the Lines

In Colorado, we refer to breaking down silos as “blurring.” Advanced degrees and credentials are now table stakes to participate in the modern economy, but accessing them usually requires students to persist through four years of high school work that often doesn’t feel relevant to their futures. Then they proceed to postsecondary programs where they must take on debt, pay tuition, or forgo work while they pursue credentials. Blurring can make high school more relevant and credentials more attainable for all students.

While Colorado has seen one of the strongest economic recoveries in the country following the pandemic, employers across our state still struggle to find the right talent for their available jobs. One factor: we have historically asked students to make choices about their careers after leaving high school, often without the appropriate data needed to identify industry-specific needs or what kind of return on investment a particular pathway will afford.

That’s why we have been laser-focused on blurring the lines between high school, higher education, and the workforce. Students and young professionals deserve more opportunities to gain skills.
By increasing those opportunities, we can save people time and money, create a better-trained workforce, and better support our businesses.

Today, roughly 53% of high school graduates in Colorado earn college credit or industry credentials through dual and concurrent enrollment while in high school, saving them an estimated $53 million annually on tuition costs. A growing number also participate in apprenticeship and “learn while you earn” models.

Innovative intermediaries, such as CareerWise Colorado, are working between education and business to provide youth apprenticeship opportunities in industries such as banking, finance, health care, insurance and advanced manufacturing.

Additionally, Pathways in Technology Early College High School models (PTECH) provide students the opportunity to learn on the job while in high school, earn an associate degree and be first in line for those jobs following graduation.

However, more students can and should be participating in these opportunities. Our vision is that every student will graduate with a diploma in one hand and a certificate, degree, or meaningful job experience in the other.

That’s why the Colorado Legislature created a task force that brought together partners from schools, postsecondary pathways, and industry. Its mission was to “develop and recommend policies, laws, and rules to support the equitable and sustainable expansion and alignment of programs that integrate secondary, postsecondary, and work-based learning opportunities.”

This past year, the task force identified several impediments to the various pathways available to students: lack of awareness, confusion about program goals, affordability, and inadequate data on outcomes. Schools are already working to better target and maximize their resources, and the task force will present a final report with clear recommendations on how to scale this work by the end of 2023.

A Skills-Based Ecosystem

The four-year degree is still a great choice for many students, but we must also create opportunities for those who choose a different path. That’s why we are creating a skills-based ecosystem, where people of all ages can get the skills they need to fill jobs that will earn them a good living and support their families.

To lead by example, we implemented skills-based hiring practices for our state workforce, and we expanded apprenticeship opportunities within state government, implementing best practices already in place at many major employers in the state.

Colorado has removed or provided flexibility on degree requirements for most state jobs, such as entry-level positions, project management, IT and supervisory roles, replacing them with the opportunity to show experience and transferable skills. In the private sector, companies such as Google and Slalom Consulting now list degrees as optional for most positions in Colorado.

To ensure all students have access to these various pathways, Colorado has created a zero-cost credential program, making it completely free to pursue a number of healthcare certifications at any of our community and technical colleges. More than 1,000 students have taken advantage of this program, and we are working to expand it to other in- demand industries, such as early childhood and education, law enforcement, fire and forestry, skilled trades and green jobs. We also created a new state scholarship program that will provide eligible students who graduate in 2023-24 with $1,500 each to pursue higher education or postsecondary training.

We have also implemented a series of programs that help ensure our agencies, schools, and industry partners work together to break down silos and integrate our “blurring the lines” vision at a statewide level. In recent years, we’ve created other programs that encourage agencies, schools and businesses to collaborate in ways that offer students more opportunities to pursue credits and degrees. Those include expanded state apprenticeships, more scholarships for students in high-needs fields, and an $85 million grant program that helps businesses work with schools to grow their own talent.

All of this work creates a more integrated talent pipeline that serves students, professionals, and businesses alike. Blurring the lines means creating new opportunities, taking a bold new approach to training the workforce of tomorrow, and meeting Coloradans where they are—to help everyone achieve a successful future in a career that they love.

See more from the Center on Reinventing Public Education and its .

Faced with alarming teacher shortages, Virginia last month agreed to partner with a for-profit online teacher credentialing company, hoping to get more teachers into classrooms faster and without the higher tuition costs of traditional colleges and universities.

While some of the Virginia school board members had qualms about the process, they agreed to give it a try due to the nagging high teacher vacancy rate. The board unanimously approved a three-year pilot program and partnered with one of the bigger companies in the fast-track credentialing business, iteach.

Such companies pledge they will get a candidate teacher-ready in about a year. The iteach program includes online courses, after which candidates are placed in classrooms, with some supervision and the agreement of the school districts.

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According to state statistics, Virginia had more than 3,500 full-time teacher vacancies for the 2022-2023 school year, which is about a 4.5% rate, though vacancies in some specialties are higher. The situation was worse than the year before, the statistics showed.

Daniel Gecker, a then-member of the state board of education who voted for the online certification plan, said he agreed only because the program is a three-year pilot and an “opportunity to gather data.”

“We are in the middle of a fairly significant teacher shortage,” Gecker said in an interview. “Having the online-trained teachers is better than having the untrained subs we’ve been having.”

He said that before the COVID-19 pandemic, it probably would have been possible to make up the teacher gap with better retention. “Post-pandemic, the gulf is just too wide; we can’t fill it with better retention and people coming out of school.”

Virginia is just the latest state to turn to for-profit teacher certification companies in an urgent effort to recruit and train more teachers. The states hope the new paths to certification will help ease the shortages, but critics argue those who take the programs are not as well trained as traditionally credentialed teachers and will do a disservice to young students.

States have other options to address the teacher shortage, including lowering standards to try to bring in more recruits.

Education Week that about a dozen states had relaxed credentialing standards for teachers or were considering doing so. California lawmakers to allow aspiring teachers to eliminate two different exams as long as they had taken courses to address basic skills and the subject matter they intend to teach. Oklahoma enacted last year to remove the requirement for a general education exam.

Some states are pressing “temporary” teachers into service. Arizona last year to take full-time positions to address the teacher shortage in that state. In addition, passed last year allows Arizona teacher candidates working toward a college degree to teach at the same time.

Iteach is working in 11 states, according to its website: Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, Nevada, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. The Mississippi Teacher Licensure Commission, a panel created to evaluate such programs for that state, unanimously recommended iteach as a certification provider at the commission’s meeting July 7. That recommendation now goes to the state board of education.

Another large company, Teachers of Tomorrow, is working in nine states, though its credentials may be in jeopardy in Texas, where the company has been placed on probation after state regulators found the company misled potential teachers in its advertising, and hadn’t shown that its training was based in research.

Iteach has been accredited by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, which credentials traditional educator training colleges. Andrew Rozell, president of certification at iteach, said it is the only for-profit program of its kind so credentialed.

The for-profit companies are separate and different from online university programs, such as Western Governors University or the Southern New Hampshire University, which also have teacher education courses but are not focused on quick credentialing. The for-profit credentialing firms tout their ability to get people into classrooms within a year or 18 months, depending on when they begin.

Serious need

Nationwide, teacher shortages are just as bad as in Virginia, particularly in very rural or low-income inner-city school districts. A working paper from Brown University “conservatively” estimated that as of August 2022, there were 36,000 teacher vacancies across the United States.

And the paper noted that those vacancies are not distributed equally. “The vacancy rate per 10,000 students is more than 159 times as high in Mississippi as it is in Missouri,” the authors wrote. The paper of 0.43 teachers per 10,000 students in Missouri and 68.59 teachers per 10,000 in Mississippi.

By taking the step to help fill the vacancies, the Virginia state education board was following Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Executive Directive No. 3 to address the teacher shortage, in part by reducing “red tape associated with teacher licensure, while assuring high standards.”

Iteach fills that criteria, according to Youngkin spokesperson Macaulay Porter, in an email to Stateline. “Governor Youngkin fully supports high-quality alternative pathways to becoming a teacher. The State Board of Education rigorously reviewed iteach data to ensure that iteach will provide school divisions with another effective and efficient option for recruiting and preparing new teachers,” Porter wrote.

The iteach method counts on reducing barriers to time and cost, according to Rozell, “without reducing rigor.” It is designed to take about a year to get candidates ready for initial teaching, if they pass state exams.

Then, the newly trained teachers are granted temporary licenses and teach under intermittent observation by iteach professionals who drop into classes, sometimes unannounced. All this occurs with the knowledge of school administrators, who can provide their own support.

Critics question fast-track credentialing

But critics contend that iteach and the other programs that turn out teachers quickly are not subject to the same requirements and depth of instruction as teachers who go the traditional path of four undergraduate years, sometimes at least a year getting a master’s degree, and many months of student teaching under nearly constant supervision by a trained teacher.

Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, a research and advocacy group, said in a phone interview that for-profit online teaching programs are a “blunt instrument” to address teacher shortages. The programs, she said, don’t take into account whether the teachers are qualified for the subjects they will be teaching or whether they will be satisfied with their jobs and stay in the profession or leave after a year or two.

“If you have a fast-track program and your model is entirely online, it begs the question of how they are assuring aspiring teachers get a place to practice … content knowledge and clinical practice,” she said. School districts should tailor recruiting and educating new teachers to the vacancies and needs, she said, which are most often “specialized teachers” such as special education or multi-language learners.

Iteach advertises that its cost for a complete program is $4,399, plus a $99 enrollment fee. Teachers of Tomorrow’s program costs about $5,000.

By contrast, annual average tuition at a four-year institution in education can range from $9,193 at an in-state school to $26,543 at an out-of-state school, according to the website College Tuition Compare, an independent college evaluation site. Elite institutions are higher. Graduate tuition ranges from $10,806 annually to $19,796, the site found.

Iteach’s Rozell said many of the students in his company’s programs are already working in classrooms, as paraprofessionals, aides for special needs kids or in other non-teaching capacities, and already have some idea of classroom management and other skills needed to be a teacher.

But Peske said the “grow your own” movement, which takes paraprofessionals or other employees and turns them into teachers, while a good idea, still requires “thoughtful clinical experience to prepare them. The notion that you would rely on candidates themselves to already be in the classrooms or already working with students, that concerns me,” she said.

“Someone could have been a paraprofessional working as an aide to a student with disabilities, but may never have had the experience [learning] about neuro-differences in those students or who may never had had a mentor.”

The American Federation of Teachers, the nation’s largest teachers union, in a called for more rigor in teacher training, not less, criticizing state efforts to lower the qualifications needed to be a teacher.

“[T]here are more alternative and nontraditional ways to become a teacher in the U.S. than ever before, and unfortunately many of them are low quality,” the report said.

The teachers union stressed methods that are reflected in traditional training, saying aspiring teachers should get “extensive” classroom experiences “alongside a skilled practitioner over a significant period,” and “a strong foundation in subject-area content.”

“We cannot put a bandage on the teacher and school staff shortage by cutting corners and lowering the bar for entry,” the report said.

The biggest knock on the swift accreditation companies came in Texas, where Texas Teachers of Tomorrow, also known as A+ Texas Teachers, has been put on probation. The Texas Education Agency that the company failed to address numerous deficiencies, including the number of content hours required for teacher candidates, and whether they are evaluated regarding whether their existing skills are “appropriate for the certification sought.” The audit came after complaints from school districts and teacher candidates who utilized the firm, The Dallas Morning News .

Attempts to reach Texas Teachers of Tomorrow were unsuccessful.

A University of Texas at Austin College of Education 2021 of teacher preparation nationally found that in every tested subject, “students do better if they have university-certified teachers,” and that for low-income students, “having a university-certified teacher can offset half or more of the disadvantages that comes from living in poverty.”

In addition, the study showed that university-certified teachers had a 73% retention rate over nine years, while only 59% of “alternatively certified” teachers remained teaching.

But Rozell said that study was skewed because of the problems with Teachers of Tomorrow. He said an internal survey of his company’s students showed that after the first year in the classroom, 93% said “they were excited to be back next year,” and that they planned to be a teacher for at least five years.

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. Follow Stateline on and .

South by Southwest Edu returns next week to Austin, Texas, running March 6–9. As always, the event offers hundreds of panels, discussions, film screenings and workshops on education policy, politics, innovation, and of course, this being 2023, the rise of artificial intelligence.

One keynote session will feature the renowned architect Frank Gehry chatting with his younger sister, educator Doreen Gehry Nelson, about creativity, critical thinking and collaboration in education. In another, pollster John Della Volpe will share new data from the November 2022 midterm elections and discuss how to engage with rising Gen Z leaders. 

In yet another, filmmakers will screen a new documentary featuring Oakland-based activist Kareem Weaver, who, fed up with bleak reading scores in his home city, filed a petition with the NAACP demanding change in early reading instruction. 

There’s actually too much to see and hear in the span of just four days, so The 74 has streamlined the selection process. We’ve scoured the schedule to highlight a few of the most significant presenters, topics and panels that might be worth your time. 

Here’s a highly subjective list of 23 sessions you shouldn’t miss in 2023:

Monday, March 6:

: In this session by two educators and a psychologist who treats addiction, panelists will share the neuroscience behind teen brains’ unique susceptibility to tech — and how adults can help students fight it via a science-based digital media curriculum and resources designed to empower teens to develop healthy relationships with their devices. .

: The LEGO Foundation’s Bo Stjerne Thomsen joins experts in early childhood education, critical thinking, and game-based learning to discuss how educators can chart student progress in hard-to-measure areas while kids play. This discussion will explore new ways to engage kids in creative play in a way that develops essential skills and new methods for assessing growth. .

: The lab director of Community & Implementation at Stanford d.school joins two leading philanthropic leaders to explore opportunities for change that happen when we treat our schools as “vital pieces of community infrastructure.” Panelists will discuss what we unlock when educators draw on what students are capable of across physical space, tech innovation and social connection. .

: The pandemic exposed millions of students to the opportunities and limitations of virtual learning. Three years after the most significant disruption to schooling in recent memory, a panel of educators and advocates ask how virtual learning can reshape how we recruit, train, hire, and deploy teachers and how a virtual education workforce could provide new solutions to ongoing staffing problems. This session is moderated by The 74’s Greg Toppo. .

: The pandemic accelerated a looming teacher shortage, with a twist: Just 20% of teachers are people of color, even as non-white students comprise the majority of U.S students, according to the Education Trust. Yet 40% of public schools do not have a single non-white teacher on record. How can we rethink teacher recruitment and training to ensure that teachers represent the students they serve? This panel explores a national initiative to recruit 1 million teachers of color over the next decade. .

: Polarization in education policy threatens to erode the broad support that schools have long enjoyed. The Aspen Institute and a bipartisan group of state policymakers developed Opportunity to Learn principles to undergird a new, positive bipartisan agenda for improving public education. The panel features Aspen’s Ross Wiener as well as two state lawmakers (one Democrat and one Republican) to explore how this approach can help rebuild support for public education. .

: Mesa Public Schools, Arizona’s largest school district, has committed to building team-based staffing models in half of its schools. It now has 30 schools with innovative staffing models, and early results are promising. This panel features a representative of Mesa schools as well as two scholars from Arizona State University, which is partnering with the district on new ways to address teacher shortages and workforce design. .

Tuesday, March 7:

(keynote, livestreamed): In this keynote session, renowned architect Frank Gehry chats with his younger sister, Doreen Gehry Nelson, about their respective careers, sharing their perspectives on the roles that “creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration” play in education. Gehry Nelson created a well-known method of design-based learning, a teaching methodology that has been applied in K-12 classrooms worldwide since 1969. .

: In this session, the National Association for Media Literacy Education will discuss implementing “train-the-trainer” models for scaling media literacy education and instruction in schools, districts and communities. This session is led by Donnell Probst, a NAMLE associate director and former college reference librarian. .

: Adequate school funding is a key to educational attainment, but the benefits don’t stop there. It affects earnings, crime and poverty, research shows. Join a panel of experts from the Learning Policy Institute, the Public Policy Institute of California and the Tennessee Department of Education to hear how funding becomes more equitable to ensure better outcomes, especially as schools tap federal pandemic relief funds. This session is led by The Dallas Morning News’ Eva-Marie Ayala. .

: Emerging approaches to demonstrating mastery, as well as advanced computational methods, hold the power to improve assessment while reducing time and administrative costs. Hear leaders across research, government and philanthropy talk about how innovation is creating the assessments of the future. .

: This new documentary film features Oakland-based NAACP activist Kareem Weaver, who was fed up with bleak reading scores in his own community and filed a petition with the NAACP demanding change in early reading instruction. The session also features American Public Media’s Emily Hanford, whose breakout podcast “Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong” is shining a light on the Science of Reading. .

: For the first time, Arizona State University is offering its courses for credit through YouTube. The partnership, called Study Hall, aims to help potential college-goers navigate higher education by earning credit for their first year of college online. The session features Study Hall’s Hank Green, a popular YouTuber who has been called “one of America’s most popular science teachers.” His videos have been viewed more than two billion times on YouTube. .

: About 15 million students in the U.S. live with unstable internet access — or no access at all. A $65 billion broadband-for-all plan is in place, but the effort isn’t expected to reach the last mile for all students until 2030. In the meantime, what are low-barrier options for students without internet access to access carefully curated resources of digital content on their devices? Hear Endless OS Foundation’s talk about alternatives. .

Wednesday, March 8:

: John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, has been called one of the world’s leading authorities on global sentiment, opinion, and influence, especially among youth in the age of digital and social media. In this discussion hosted by the Walton Family Foundation, he’ll share new data from the November 2022 midterm elections and the panel will explore how to engage with rising Gen Z leaders to bring their unique vision for unity and collaboration to fruition. . 

: In this 90-minute interactive workshop led by Stanford d.school educators, participants will engage in the fundamental concepts underpinning Artificial Intelligence through symbolic play and hands-on design work. Participants will learn how AI can be used to address societal challenges, explore classroom applications, identify ethical implications and prototype different outcomes for social justice and the education system. .

: Experts say K-12 schools must increasingly offer education that’s personalized, skill-based, and interdisciplinary. But traditional school transcripts are ill-suited to capture the richness of these approaches. This panel discussion by representatives of the Mastery Transcript Consortium, the XQ Institute, the Aurora Institute and Big Picture Learning will explore insights and lessons learned from their credential design efforts. .

: Pandemic learning loss has engendered countless tutoring initiatives nationwide. Could tutoring be not just a short-term fix but an enduring feature of the U.S. education system? And what does research show about the benefits of online and hybrid models? This session, featuring former Tennessee Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman and current Tennessee Chief Academic Officer Lisa Coons, will look at new research and on-the-ground implementation of evidence-based tutoring programs that improve outcomes for all students, particularly those historically excluded from such services. .

: As the pandemic recedes across the U.S., K-12 superintendents are retiring in droves. Top executive-search firms say business is brisk, with departures as high as any in recent memory. The American Association of School Administrators last fall found that about one in four superintendents had left their jobs in the past year, a marked increase from previous years. In their wake they leave a shallower recruiting pool. So is it time to rethink the superintendent pipeline? Should districts be more engaged in succession planning and growing future superintendents from within? This panel explores Texas school districts that were intentional about developing leaders and whose boards picked high-performing successors from within, allowing the district to keep raising the bar without losing momentum. .

: Educators should be intentionally designing the learning experience, say two experiential learning experts from the Minerva Project, an innovative college program that has made waves in higher education. This workshop will show how they design integrated online and offline immersive experiences that connect the curriculum to the real world “using awe and wonder as pedagogically useful tools.” .

: As drag queen story hours come under fire from conservatives nationwide, advocates say it’s more important than ever to understand their aim: Using drag as a traditional art form to promote literacy, teach about LGBTQ lives and activate children’s imaginations. This session, featuring three drag queens, will discuss the importance of LGBTQ family programming. .

Thursday, March 9

: This session features of Sandy Hook Promise, who will discuss the group’s “Know the Signs” school shooting and violence prevention programs. The session will bring together leaders who are equipping students with social and emotional skills to spot warning signs in their peers and intervene safely.

: In this session, two educators from the Groundswell Project UK will talk about young people and extremism, and how we can best challenge hate narratives in our schools and communities. Groundswell has been working in schools to counter hate narratives from the far-right to Islamism to misogynist extremism and other forms of violence. This session will offer best practices to educate youth on these issues. The session will also include personal testimony and examples of how young people can be misguided into extremist thinking — and how to help support vulnerable young people. .

Disclosure: The Walton Family Foundation and XQ Institute provide financial support to The 74.

“We had a huge attrition rate,” acknowledges Dr. Calvin E. Moore, Jr., CEO of the Council for Professional Recognition, which awards Child Development Associate (CDA) credentials. “I really wanted to unpack why so many folks never complete the process.”

As the nation wakes up to the importance of the workforce that educates young children and keeps them safe and protected, Moore and the Council have embarked on a sweeping of the credentialing process, making use of a design-thinking approach that prioritizes equity and access. Ultimately, the initiative could bring more talent into the field at a time when it is needed more than ever.

In the past 37 years, the Council has awarded nearly a million CDAs. Maintaining the standards of early educators and measuring their competencies help families and communities to feel confidence in the professionals trusted to facilitate the brain development of young children. These standards apply to preschool centers, family child care and home-visitors, so getting them right matters.

Upon joining the organization in May 2020 as Interim CEO, Moore realized, “The status quo was not really efficient for candidates or for the council staff.” The board supported his commitment to listen to stakeholders and to heed their voices.

Moore’s career began with the Jefferson County Committee for Economic Opportunity in Birmingham, Ala., where he worked as a teacher’s aide. As the organization’s first CEO who has a CDA certification, he has a unique perspective on the value of the credential as well as the potential to make it an even more powerful lever for the sector. “The CDA process jump-started my own career and made me feel more deeply connected to it,” he says.

Inspired by Daniel Coyle’s 2018 book , Moore dedicated himself to “using this period of transition as a way to crystallize our purpose.” To begin, the Council commissioned — a New Jersey-based consulting firm that counts the federal Head Start program among its clients — to facilitate what Moore describes as “an iterative process that allowed us to challenge our assumptions and define our program.” This work entails surveys, focus groups and interviews to gather perspectives from those using the system.

In other words, it involves design thinking, as “a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology and the requirements for business success.”

“Reimagining systems is essential for organizations that want to scale and grow,” says BCT’s Lawrence M. Hibbert. And wholesale, holistic reimagining doesn’t happen in silos. Alongside the credentialing initiative, the Council is also collaborating with the at Arizona State University. Dr. Shantel Meek has been leading the effort, making sure that the latest and greatest information around equity is applied to Council publications as well as the national CDA standards. Reinforcing the Council’s partnership the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has been another priority. The Council also starts high schoolers on the path to early childhood education careers.

“Design thinking begins with empathy,” Hibbert explains. “Who is your user? What is it like to be in his or her shoes?” Subsequent steps in the process are defining the users’ needs, ideating new and challenging concepts, prototyping solutions and testing them out.

Technology has been a recurring theme in the responses. “Candidates had a hard time getting answers to their questions and finding the resources they need,” says Moore. “Depending on what part of the country they were in, some have had internet issues or lack of access to the internet.” Many of the responses detail problems scheduling assessments in Pearson VUE Centers — a pain point that became even more painful during the pandemic. Possible solutions, says Moore, include an online-proctored exam, where someone can take the exam in their home, or at an office or at the library.

While technology is holding candidates back, it also holds powerful solutions. Local libraries were revealed to play a surprisingly major role. “Even if there was a community where there may not have been a large number of high school graduates or college graduates,” Moore reports, “if that community had a lot of libraries and other kinds of resources for those CDA candidates to tap into, then they did better on the assessment than communities that were resource poor.”

The CDA is changing to meet community and workforce needs, but access has always guided the Council’s work. “At last count,” Moore says, “we have done assessments in 23 different languages. If it’s a bilingual program, they can be assessed in a bilingual way. If it’s a monolingual setting, we make sure that assessment is done in the language that is being spoken at the center.”

Fresh dimensions to the credentialing process will start rolling out in 2023, but don’t expect a shiny new CDA assessment process to be unveiled like the latest model of an SUV. It’s an ongoing process, Hibbert stresses, constantly informed by practitioners.

Ultimately, it’s just like education in general. “The more you learn,” Moore says, “the more you want to know.”