Arizona faces ‘severe’ teacher shortage; most instructors don‘t meet requirements

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — A recent survey shows Arizona’s teacher shortage is now severe.

Nearly 78% of our teaching positions are vacant or filled by teachers who don’t meet standard requirements. As of last month, there were 2,260 vacancies statewide.

Arizona’s Family interviewed the State Superintendent of Education, Tom Horne, and the Arizona Teacher’s Union President, Marisol Garcia. They agree that the state is losing teachers but disagree on how to fix the problem.

“We are losing more teachers than are coming into the classroom,” Horne said.

A recent survey conducted by the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association shows the state of the teacher shortage in Arizona.

“This is a serious problem, and we need serious solutions,” said Garcia. “We can actually solve this instead of having to talk about the teacher retention issue every year. It’s getting old.”

The data shows that the majority of teaching positions in the state either remain vacant or are filled by people who do not meet the standard teacher requirements. This means the positions are filled by what’s known as alternative methods.

State law allows people with experience in their fields to start teaching so long as they pass a certification course within three years, something you can even do online.

The survey showed that these alternative measures fill 52.2% of teacher positions. Meanwhile, 25.4% of teacher positions remain vacant several weeks into the school year.

“I think that these folks have every intention of being qualified educators, and I think they have a lot to help with content,” said Garcia, who believes this method is choosing quantity over quality.

She argues while more teachers are in the classroom, they are not improving Arizona’s education system.

“I think the hope was we just need to get a warm body in front of these students. But my son deserves more than a warm body. I think most parents want more than a warm body,” Garcia said.

Horne disagrees and thinks the survey exaggerates the issue.

“The classes that don’t have any qualified person to teach them at the moment are roughly 4% … It’s still a serious problem because it means you have a class or two where the students don’t have someone properly prepared to teach them,” Horne said. ”We are losing more teachers than are coming into the classroom.”

Horne and Garcia agree that Arizona’s teachers should be paid more. Our state routinely ranks last in teacher pay.

“Just like any professional, you are going to stay when you feel like you are being treated with respect, when you have a professional wage,” Garcia said.

“We have got to increase the salaries of our teachers, which is very important,” said Horne.

The legislature would need to approve increasing funding for education to increase teacher salaries in the state.

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