Monika Williams Shealey, dean of the Temple University College of Education and Human Development, advocated for state support of teacher recruitment and retention initiatives as she testified during a Pennsylvania House Education Committee information meeting. 

Shealey joined representatives from the Education Commission of the States, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, Teach Plus Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Association of Career and Technical Administrators, and the Center for Black Educator Development in providing testimony about modifying Pennsylvania’s teacher certification process. 

“I come to you and certainly offer my thinking on this issue of certification, with the framing that I am a former special education teacher. My comments are also informed by my experience as a faculty member in special education in a number of states,” Shealey said during the meeting held Feb. 25 in Harrisburg. 

She cited findings from the Center for Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis indicating that approximately 9,500 teachers in Pennsylvania left the profession in the 2022–2023 academic year, resulting in a 7.7% attrition rate. 

“We have an attrition problem, and you’ve talked about the fact that retention is not the primary topic of conversation today, but it’s hard to not focus on retention when you are talking about recruitment,” Shealey said as she addressed the legislators. 

Shealey highlighted a range of issues impacting the field as she testified, such as the costs of college tuition, the need for the expansion of grant programs to assist future teachers and licensing requirements for out-of-state educators seeking to relocate to Pennsylvania. 

She spoke about helping to mitigate college tuition costs to help future educators.  

“I’m raising money for scholarships on a regular basis, trying to make sure that education is affordable for folks that understand when they leave us, they are not walking into a six-figure salaried position,” Shealey said, noting that many new teachers have student loans and families that they are supporting. 

“This is a very real problem for those who are deciding to go into classrooms that serve the neediest students. We see those students in urban and rural settings, and we know these are the settings where we have the least experienced teachers.” 

She highlighted the importance of extending enrollment in the Pennsylvania Department of Education Dual Credit Innovation grant program to Temple. The grant provides funding to public institutions that enables students from underrepresented populations to access dual credits. 

Shealey said extending the Dual Credit Innovation grant to Temple will help the university expand the work of the Temple Education Scholars (TES) program. TES is a yearlong dual enrollment program designed for college-bound high school seniors to take up to five education courses at Temple University. 

She also addressed initiatives currently underway at Temple to help future teachers earn their certification in an expedited manner. 

“Just this year, we expedited certification options that decreased the number of credit hours for individuals that are on emergency permits,” Shealey explained.  

“We created pathways that we did not have before, that allowed for those teachers to be able to come into our program and get the courses that they need to be certified.” 

Shealey went on to highlight challenges impacting the mobility factor for teachers. She experienced difficulty in trying to recruit teachers from New Jersey to come over to Pennsylvania because of licensing requirements. 

“We’re not making it easy for folks to come from New Jersey, from New York (and) from Delaware to teach in Pa. Why? When they’ve already demonstrated that they’ve been successful in their teaching career,” Shealey said. 

“So how do we take some of these requirements and add some common sense in a time when we are trying to recruit folks to do what I believe is one of the most challenging jobs in our country right now.” 

With that in mind, she supports legislative efforts such as Senate Bill 843, which will result in Pennsylvania joining the Interstate Mobility Compact. The compact allows teachers with an eligible license held in a compact member state to be granted an equivalent license in another member state. 

Shealey spoke about local efforts currently underway to impact the region’s higher education issues. Every month, she meets with deans of schools and colleges of education in the local area to discuss their collective needs. 

“We want to be sure that we’re looking at this issue as a city and that I think creates an opportunity for us to develop some regional partnerships around the state, where we are working together to fill the needs that we see in our local school districts,” Shealey said.