A major pipeline for new teachers in Texas is at risk of shutting down due to longstanding issues with the state.
Texas Teachers of Tomorrow (TTT) has been flagged by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for not meeting the threshold of having at least 75% of its enrollees pass state certification exams three years running.
TTT-trained test-takers failed to meet this quota in the areas of high school computer science, secondary math, secondary social studies, and other categories. This puts TTT in jeopardy of losing certification in a wide range of subjects.
In 2022, TEA put TTT on probation and recommended to the State Board for Educator Certification that it withdraw TTT’s accreditation due to allegations of deceptive marketing practices, the absence of qualified mentors for its enrollees, and more, as previously covered by The Dallas Express.
Yet Heath Morrison, TTT’s new CEO and former superintendent of Montgomery ISD, reported that not only is preliminary data showing that enrollees are likely to do much better on the next round of certification tests, but the company has been in discussions with TEA for months to reach a settlement.
“It’s our hope to have this settled so we can move forward and look forward, not backward,” Morrison said, according to The Dallas Morning News.
While state certification is the traditional route for teachers, TTT provides an alternative certification pathway to thousands of aspiring educators each year. These options have helped to alleviate the ongoing teacher shortage while also offering training to ensure candidates are qualified.
While TTT is the largest such program in the state, it is not the only one. Dallas ISD runs its own alternative certification scheme. It provides candidates with about four months of training, including classroom observation and virtual pre-service instruction. However, Dallas ISD has struggled to retain qualified teachers, logging a 20.1% turnover rate during the 2022-2023 school year.
Despite the hard work of its faculty, Dallas ISD has been struggling in academics, with only 39% of students scoring at grade level in mathematics on the 2021-2022 STAAR exam, according to the latest accountability report from the Texas Education Agency.
Overall, data has shown that attrition rates among uncertified teachers are much higher than their state- and alternatively certified counterparts. This presents a potential challenge for districts that rely heavily on uncertified teachers, such as those in rural areas or small charters.
