Education Committee Informational Meeting on Teacher Certifications
Rep. Peter G. Schweyer February 26, 2025 | 9:30 AM
HARRISBURG, Feb. 25 – The Pennsylvania House Education Committee convened an informational meeting Tuesday to discuss Pennsylvania’s teacher certification process and proposals to remove the barriers for prospective educators to get into the classroom.
Tuesday’s hearing featured several testifiers across three panels, who discussed the impacts of decreasing certification fees and costs to complete required training and efforts to speed up the process to certify applications to strengthen Pennsylvania’s educator workforce.
“School districts across the commonwealth from Philly to Erie and Allentown to Scranton face serious challenges with recruiting and retaining qualified teachers in their classrooms,” said state Rep. Peter Schweyer, Majority Chair of the PA House Education Committee. “Today’s conversation provided meaningful insight into ways to cut the red tape for educators to receive their certification and ensure Pennsylvania’s children receive a quality education.”
Testifiers included representatives from the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA), the Education Commission of the States (ECS), the Pennsylvania Association of Career and Technical Administrators (PACTA) and Teach Plus who detailed various incentives and recommendations for prospective educators to achieve their certification without lowering the thresholds. Recommendations included reducing financial burdens for certification and improving pathways and transparency with the certification process.
“To improve student outcomes and teacher retention, it is important to not lower the bar to becoming a teacher but instead limit any barriers that are not evidence-based and can hold people back from pursuing a teacher career,” said Emily Sagor, PA Policy Manager, Teach Plus PA. “This will not only help address the teacher shortage but also ensure the certification process is fair, equitable and aligned with the needs of our students.”
The informational meeting can be viewed in its entirety here, while testimony can be found here.