OPPOSE SB142

WE NEED PROFESSION-READY TEACHERS IN OUR CLASSROOMS, NOT WARM BODIES. VOTE NO ON SB142

LOOSENING TEACHER LICENSURE REQUIREMENTS HURTS STUDENTS

There are several bills in the General Assembly to lower requirements of teacher licensure, one of these bills, SB142, drastically loosens requirements and standards for teacher licensure, by allowing local school boards and superintendents the sole authority to approve licensure without state board approval, take away the right of these teachers to earn continuous status (due process protections), reduce teacher quality and diminish teachers’ professional status, and ultimately hurt student learning outcomes. Over the past five years, measures have been established to open up and loosen teacher licensures to a point where the number of applications for provisional licenses in Virginia has grown exponentially, from 117 in 2015 to 2,698 in 2021—a more than 2000% increase.  And now, 46 percent of school divisions surveyed by JLARC reported that provisionally licensed teachers are very poorly or poorly prepared to be teachers. SB142 would exacerbate these trends.

The ways for schools to recruit and retain the best and brightest educators are to boost their compensation, focus on the well-being of educators, stop micro-managing them, show them respect, bring more people into the profession by covering the cost of their teacher preparation courses in exchange for a commitment to teaching in a district, and establishing teaching apprenticeships — programs that pay for aspiring teachers’ education and allow them to work and be paid while they earn their degrees.  Loosening teacher licensure requirements is not the answer.  Providing educators who are not qualified or trained in the pedagogy of teaching is a slap in the face to the profession of teaching.

All teachers should be “profession-ready” from their first day of responsibility for student learning. This means that, before becoming a teacher-of-record, teacher candidates must demonstrate the skills and knowledge needed for effective classroom practice. While teachers continue to learn and grow after entering the profession, no candidate should ever be called a “teacher” without demonstrating the ability to improve student learning. Candidates who are placed in classrooms and expected to learn how to teach on the job are not profession-ready.

PLEASE OPPOSE SB142