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IDEA Carver Academy teachers pass by in the hallway on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, in San Antonio\u2019s East Side.<\/p>\n
Andrew J. Whitaker\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
A 2025 statewide survey of Texas public school teachers found fewer than half of responding educators felt adequately prepared to enter the classroom when their careers began.<\/p>\n
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About two-thirds of the nearly 1,200 teachers who responded to the Charles Butt Foundation\u2019s 2025 Texas Teacher Poll<\/a> said they had considered leaving the profession\u00a0\u2014 down from nearly 80% the year prior. Almost all reported a salary increase would be necessary to stay in the field.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Gov. Greg Abbott has focused on addressing these challenges to the teaching profession in recent years, establishing a Teacher Vacancy Task Force in 2022<\/a>, and declaring boosted teacher compensation a priority item in 2025. Last year, he signed House Bill 2 into law, allocating $8.5 billion in funding for public education.<\/a><\/p>\n But recently, a new challenge to the teaching profession has emerged: the growing number of uncertified teachers in the classroom.<\/p>\n In 2024-25, 12%\u00a0\u2014 more than 42,000 teachers total\u00a0\u2014 were uncertified, <\/a>according to the Texas Education Agency. That same year, more than half of first-year teachers entered the profession without being certified<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Why are there so many uncertified teachers in Texas?<\/p>\n The number of uncertified new teachers hired by Texas districts spiked through the COVID-19 pandemic as staffing demands and national hiring shortages rose,\u00a0said Jacob Kirksey, an associate professor of educational leadership and policy at Texas Tech University.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Districts could hire uncertified teachers if they voted to become a \u201cDistrict of Innovation,\u201d or DOI, which allowed them special exemptions from education laws. The innovation status was intended to provide districts with more local control and gives Texas districts greater flexibility in hiring options, curriculum choices and class sizes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Through the 2022-23 school year, Texas districts hired 15,000 new teachers without a certification\u00a0\u2014 a 650% increase from 2010, according to the Texas Association of School Boards. Students in the classroom with a new uncertified teacher lose about four months of learning in reading and three months in math, according to Kirksey\u2019s research.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n The certification exemption, originally geared toward hiring teachers needed urgently in short-term situations or for career and technical instructor\u00a0roles, meant the demographics of those entering the profession began\u00a0to rapidly change, Kirksey said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n What have lawmakers done to address the uncertified teacher problem?<\/p>\n Looking forward, Kirksey said Texas has done a lot of work to solve some\u00a0problems that emerged as the state moved to deregulate teaching\u00a0in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n Over twenty years later, HB2 established the PREP (Preparing and Retaining Educators through Partnerships) pre-service residency program, which provides a minimum of $20,000 to each teacher in training. The program also supports funding for mentorship, pre-service residences and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n Districts approved to participate in the PREP program can also receive funding for \u201cGrow Your Own\u201d programming<\/a>, which helps uncertified school employees become certified teachers and supports high school students who aspire to become educators.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Funding from HB2 also\u00a0gives districts a $1,000 payment<\/a> for each uncertified teacher who earns a certificate.\u00a0It also\u00a0boosted compensation programs, like the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA), which pays the highest-performing teachers extra money in a bid to\u00a0retain talented educators.<\/p>\n Described as an accessible pathway to a six-figure salary<\/a> for teachers, the\u00a0TIA program recognizes top teachers with both a distinction, which is valid for five years, and a salary boost according to their level of designation. Texas allocated more than $481 million in\u00a0TIA funds during the 2024-25 school year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe teacher pipeline starts at preparation, but it doesn\u2019t end until you can confidently say that you are actually retaining the effective teachers who are in your state,\u201d Kirksey said.<\/p>\n While school districts were able to hire\u00a0uncertified teachers based on their existing exemptions\u00a0for the 2025-26 academic year, they will no longer be able to do so for foundational subjects, including English, math, science and social studies.\u00a0New guidelines from HB2 phase those exemptions out.<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n