HD6 - HJR 678: Report on Teacher Shortages in the Commonwealth, with Focus on Enhancing the Transfer Pipeline from Virginia's Community Colleges


Executive Summary:
House Joint Resolution 678 requires that the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) and the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) study “the shortage of classroom teachers in the Commonwealth, and especially explore methods to attract students to the Virginia Community College System for the first two years of a teacher preparation program.”

In response to this requirement, SCHEV and the VCCS have studied factors contributing to teacher shortages and suggested strategies for utilizing the transfer pipeline to narrow the gap between supply and demand.

This report begins with a description of the instructional personnel in Virginia public schools (including gender, age, and ethnicity) in relationship to the Commonwealth’s school population. Following this section, yearly data (2004 to 2010) from the Virginia Department of Education on specific shortage categories is listed and the reasons for these shortages are discussed.

Different pathways to teacher licensure are explored, including approved programs and alternative routes, such as the Career Switcher Program, experiential learning, provisional licenses, alternative routes, and reciprocity.

Transfer from a two- to a four-year institution is yet another path to teacher licensure. A survey was conducted to provide a broad stroke assessment of the ability of Virginia’s four-year institutions to accommodate an expanded flow of transfers into undergraduate teacher education programs, and to gain input from four?year institutions on the efficacy of relevant articulation agreements.

Models of exemplary practices to improve the pipeline preparing future teachers are explored at the national, out-of-state, and state-system levels. In addition, Virginia’s own model programs are described.

A number of recommendations designed to improve and increase the flow of teacher education students from our community colleges to the four-year institutions with teacher preparation programs close the report.