Kentucky's education commissioner tells lawmakers teacher shortage is concerning

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WDRB) -- The man in charge of education in Kentucky said the teacher shortage is concerning.

Kentucky Education Commissioner Jason Glass presented lawmakers Tuesday with data on teacher shortages that worsened with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall hiring has partially rebounded, Glass said, but the underlying issues remain.

Tuesday's presentation to the Interim Joint Committee on Education — more of a listening session than a day of decision-making — was a way for Glass to show Kentucky lawmakers the latest data from across the state's schools. For example, the number of total teaching positions in 2019 was 9,076. After the state lost more than 1,500 during the pandemic, the rebound — back to 8,724 in 2021 — hasn't caught back up.

Glass said it's a clear indication of a problem filling open jobs.

"You've got a multi-year effort that you're going to have to invest in to have an impact," Glass said. "I think what is driving this right now is we have to do something. Action needs to be taken so that you can get upstream of the problem. If we continue to fail to act, we should expect those unfilled vacancies to increase ..."

Earlier this year, Gov. Andy Beshear signed House Bill 277, which would create an expediated pipeline for future teachers.

The new law allows a Kentucky student to choose a residency with a participating school district, shadow a teacher during the day and take the course work through a participating university at night. Assuming the student passes the required exams, the student can receive a bachelor's degree and the initial teacher's certification in three school years.

Students can also stay within their own district to fulfill the program. A teacher who is already in a traditional route can still choose to transfer into the expedited program if they meet the requirements.

On Tuesday, Glass's presentation centered around one fact: A lot of the solutions involve more money like higher educator wages, state funding to help with scholarships and increased recruiting efforts.

Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, countered Glass' insistence upon money being an issue, saying lawmakers have followed through on pensions and record funding into education.

"The challenge that you have as legislators is with the fiscal responsibilities, you have to keep doing it," he told lawmakers. "The pressure is on schools. The inflationary pressure is going to keep coming, just like they do for everything else. So we have to keep increasing the funding so that our schools can keep up with inflation and the pressure that they're under from that."

Louisville public school teachers will receive a 4% raise starting with the upcoming 2022-23 school year as part of a tentative agreement between their union and Kentucky's largest school district.

In addition to the across-the-board raises, Jefferson County Public Schools teachers will receive a continuity stipend of $1,000 for the upcoming school year and a salary supplement for working in the district's Accelerated Improvement Schools and at schools in Choice Zones, part of the new JCPS student assignment plan. That supplement will range between $8,000 and $14,000, Superintendent Marty Pollio said last week.

How to train teachers was also a topic of conversation Tuesday.

Rep. Killian Timoney, R-Lexington brought up the way standardized testing is a barrier for many hoping to teach, and Glass agreed, adding that a lot of holistic qualities can't be measured on an exam.

"We have a hard time measuring those things," Glass said. "Those dispositional aspects are just as important maybe more important than what you can do on a standardized test."

After his presentation Tuesday, Glass said he was happy overall with the conversation and ideas from lawmakers. He said the problems won't be fixed overnight and it's going to take long-term investments to see the teacher shortage alleviated.

"We've got to start working proactively," he said. "We've got to get ahead of this and change some of the ways that we talk about and support the teaching profession. And that needs to happen in the next session."

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