Some more context would be nice.
Houston ISD has 2,097 uncertified teachers out of more than 10,000 teachers for 2024-25, according to district records first provided to and reported by ABC13 KTRK.
About 1 in 5 teachers, out of a district total 10,618 teachers as of Aug. 5, are “working toward certification,” according to records requested by the TV station for the total number of uncertified teachers on staff.
The Houston Chronicle reported in August that state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles said the district hired around 850 uncertified teachers in the context of summer hiring.
Miles has framed vacancies prior to his leadership due to a “mentality” that the district couldn’t hire uncertified teachers. HISD’s chief human resources officer Jessica Neyman also spoke of this approach in 2023-24, when the district hired at least 830 uncertified teachers.
“And then the notion that, well, you have to be a certified teacher to be effective,” Miles said. “Yes, more likely than not you will be more effective than a teacher without a certification. Yes, that’s true. But that doesn’t mean in effect where non-certified teachers will be ineffective. We came in. We changed that concept.”
[…]
HISD is not alone in relying on uncertified teachers to fill vacancies. Nearly half of first-time new teacher hires were uncertified in 2022-23, according to a July Texas Tech University report. The report indicated that students with new uncertified teachers experience learning loss, losing about 4 months of learning in reading and 3 months in math, unless the teacher has previous experience working in a public school.
“The latest data I have showed that uncertified teachers turnover at three times the rate as other teachers. And so part of it is that, ‘okay, I’ve never been in a classroom before. I don’t know what classroom management looks like because I’ve never seen it modeled,'” the report’s author, Jacob Kirksey, said.
How many uncertified teachers did HISD have before this year? How many uncertified teachers are there in other big districts, as a percentage of the total? We don’t know, the story doesn’t say. I could probably find that information if I looked for it, but I feel like it should be in the story, to provide some context. There are always some uncertified teachers – perhaps more accurately, teachers who are in the process of getting their certification – and that’s fine, there’s more than one way to get there and having a mix of experiences is healthy. But too much is not good, especially when the district has been actively chasing teachers away. That research result about learning loss is quite ominous for our situation. I doubt there’s anything we can do about this right now, but it sure feels like yet another item on the increasingly long “stuff we need to fix after Mike Miles finally shoves off” list.