QUESTION
How are teacher recruitment and hiring being addressed, and what incentive programs are in place?
0:57:54
·
3 min
The Department of Education acknowledges challenges in teacher recruitment and outlines existing and potential incentive programs to attract more diverse teachers.
- The Department faces the need to significantly increase teacher hiring, potentially by 10 or 12,000, due to attrition and other factors.
- Incentive programs, such as the Teaching Fellows Program, are crucial for recruiting career-changing teachers and creating a more racially and ethnically diverse teaching workforce.
- Alternative certification programs, which include subsidizing tuition costs, are highlighted as effective methods for overcoming the financial barriers of becoming a teacher.
- Funding is necessary to expand these programs and comply with new laws, emphasizing partnerships with state and city council for financial support.
- There are additional expenses, including recruitment costs and administrative support, not covered in the initial budget estimates for salary and benefits.
Linda Lee
0:57:54
So the first question I have is, in terms of the recruitment and hiring of teachers, because I just know for a fact from the the nonprofit sector, like, how hiring these days is very, very difficult and finding the staffing is very difficult.
0:58:08
And, you know, according to the testimony, you know, it seems like there are nationally and locally fewer teachers than ever entering the profession as you said.
0:58:16
So So so my question is, are there any thoughts about incentive programs or or ways to sort of, you know, get folks into the pipeline and what does that look like and and and what do you think the needs of that are gonna be above and beyond potentially just the regular hires?
Dan Weisberg
0:58:34
It's it's a really important question, counsel, member Lee.
0:58:37
I appreciate that.
0:58:38
Because it's one of the things that doesn't probably get as much attention about this law, but it's it's really important.
0:58:45
The, you know, our estimates are, each year, it varies some, but we just threw attrition.
0:58:51
And thankfully, you know, we have we have by far and away the greatest education workforce in the in the country.
0:58:57
You know, we we have to backfill about 45 teachers teacher vacancies a year.
0:59:03
And we're able to do that through, you know, various sources, which I'll talk about in a minute because it gets to your question.
0:59:09
Here we'd have to increase that by 10 or 12,000.
0:59:13
So we're talking about several times our typical hiring need How would we do that?
0:59:20
We have great incentive programs right now.
0:59:23
They really work and they work on multiple levels.
0:59:26
So for example, teaching fellows program, which I think was put in place maybe in 2001.
0:59:31
But, you know, early after the the the turn of century, is very effective, and it's effective in recruiting teachers who are career changers, who have different levels of expertise.
0:59:43
Is far more racially and ethically diverse pipeline than what comes from higher education, which as as Emma said, this is also a big challenge for us to making sure that We are increasing our numbers of Latino, Latino teachers, Asian teachers, African American teachers.
1:00:00
We have deficits there.
1:00:02
And our alter our alternative certification programs tend to be much more effective at doing that.
1:00:09
So here's the catch counsel member Lee.
1:00:11
One of the reasons it's effective is because we subsidize tuition costs as part of it.
1:00:17
1 of our major major problems, not just in New York City, although it is in New York City, is it's very expensive to become a teacher.
1:00:24
And so then then we're surprised when it's mostly people who come from Middle class backgrounds who have the means can afford to become a teacher.
1:00:33
Well, one of the things we do to counteract that in our alternative certification programs is we will pay as the New York City public schools, we will pay part of your tuition.
1:00:42
So we could ramp that up.
1:00:44
Again, what does that come down to?
1:00:46
We need the funding to do that.
1:00:48
And so one of the strategies that we would employ to to to comply with this law is to expand our alternative certification programs Again, we would work in partnership with you and our friends from the state to figure out how to find a funding to pay for that.
1:01:03
And that's not part to to be clear, That's not part of the 1.6 to 1 $900,000,000,000 estimate the IPO came up with.
1:01:11
That's just the cost for salary and benefits for the additional teachers.
1:01:14
There are additional recruitment costs.
1:01:17
There are costs of hiring the administrators around it that are not figured into that.
Linda Lee
1:01:21
Okay.