CTE Teacher Retention

A recent CTE Policy Watch Blog detailed the House Committee on Education and the Workforce's hearing on "Education Reforms: Exploring Teacher Quality Initiatives," held on July 27. This hearing examined state and local efforts to attract and retain highly effective teachers. Teacher retention has been a major problem in Career and Technical Education, especially in PA. We are seeing too many quality teachers leave the classroom within the first three years. This is often due to a lack of support and an extreme level of frustration. In our Teacher Leadership Network meetings in PA, we have been exploring ways to improve our teacher induction programs in order to assist career professionals transitioning into the field of education.

In CTE, teachers with two or more years of industry experience can enter the classroom as an emergency certified instructor. During their first two years of teaching, they have to pass a series of certification exams, including the Praxis Series, a general knowledge exam, and an industry competency exam if they would like to continue to teach. In addition, they need to be enrolled in a teacher certification program. In PA, we have the option of enrolling in programs at Penn State or Temple University. Most teachers earn an average of 6 credits per year that can be applied to a Bachelors or Masters degree.

However, when a teacher first enters the classroom from industry, there needs to be a relevant induction program to assist in this transition. Through my experience with Temple University's Vital Program, I was provided with a week-long session on how to develop lesson plans, how to create meaningful projects, and how to manage the classroom, several weeks before I actually entered the classroom. Although this was meaningful and relevant, I still don't believe I was fully prepared for my first day at Roxborough High School in Philadelphia. The general knowledge I gained through the Vital Program assisted me in developing an overview of the process of teaching, but I soon learned that each facility has its own vocabulary, filing system, committees, student management system, etc. For this reason, I think that teachers should be earning credits during their first year of teaching by meeting specific goals in the classroom and meeting the demands of their facilities.

The Temple Vital program did provide me with a means to develop lessons and receive credit; however, often I found myself doing additional work that did not assist in the overall success of my first few years as a teacher. Ideally, if teacher induction programs were designed to be relevant to each teacher's individualized program and responsibilities, I think we would retain more teachers and they would be more effective within their first few years in the classroom. In addition, I believe each facility should designate a mentor, who would serve as a field resource person for the certifying institution. This would create more consistency in the delivery of what the teacher needs.

During the same House Committee hearing, there was discussion on evaluating teacher performance. Rep. John Kline (R-MN) was quoted as saying, "the best teachers are those who keep students engaged, challenged, and progressing in the classroom” and “valuing credentials and tenure over student outcomes is completely unacceptable.” Chairman Kline explained that there should be methods for evaluating non-core academic educators and thought it was difficult to find an effective evaluation method for the “non-tested subjects.” (I am assuming they are referring to non-core academic subjects, such as music and art). However, in PA, students in most, if not all, CTE programs are required to take the National Occupational Competency Testing Institute Exams (NOCTI). Every year, students who complete more than two years of the program they are enrolled in must take the NOCTI exam in their graduation year. Students are required to take a written portion, which consists of approximately 150 multiple-choice questions, as well as a 3 hour performance portion, where they must complete specific tasks in their occupational area. This test could be used as a means to evaluate teacher performance, as it measures students' retention of the material and the competency of completing tasks. However, to be sure that the students are being fairly assessed, we need to be sure that each program has the facilities and equipment to adequately administer the exam. This would require bigger budgets or additional grants for schools that don't have the proper equipment.

This raises one more important question: if students in CTE programs are required to take the NOCTI exam and CTE teachers are being rated on the students' performance, will CTE students also have to take the required academic tests, such as the PSSA's in PA?