State law requires that all teachers be certified, but thanks to a loophole in state law, districts can delay compliance until the 2029-30 school year. Many have done so, resulting in a full 27% of newly hired teachers who weren’t certified.
The Heritage Foundation’s Corey DeAngelis, who has been a major critic of the Texas public education system for years, pointed to this as another example of its dysfunction. “They should be able to figure out this basic requirement, given that the public school system spends nearly $19,000 per student per year,” he said.
DeAngelis went on to point out that despite all the back and forth on the issue of teacher certifications, there hasn’t been any evidence that it actually makes any difference in student outcomes. “You could have a school that’s 100% certified, and still have that school be dangerous to kids,” he said.
He went on to point out that legislation has been passed in Texas with the specific purpose of addressing this issue, and yet we still haven’t seen any results. Rather than continuing to tinker around the edges of teacher certification requirements, DeAngelis suggested simply expanding school choice so more parents could choose to put their children in a school with better results.