Texas education chief: rapid growth in uncertified teachers is harming classrooms

Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath told the House Committee on Public Education on March 1 that Texas has seen a sharp rise in first‑year teachers who lack state certification and that trend is linked to lower student performance and higher adult turnover.

Morath said the state currently hires roughly 50,000 new teachers each year and “about 20,000 of those are rehires,” but that of the roughly 30,000 new‑to‑teaching hires each year a growing majority are working without certification. “We have in the last 3 years gone almost entirely to hiring uncertified teachers,” Morath said.

The commissioner and several lawmakers framed that shift as a policy and operational concern. Morath said campuses with larger shares of uncertified teachers tend to have weaker performance: he cited data showing campuses in the F range averaged 15.9% uncertified teachers while A campuses averaged 4.7% uncertified teachers. He added that uncertified teachers “quit at much more frequent rates,” which drives local turnover and staffing…