Faced With a Shortage of Teachers, Texas is Relaxing its Standards

Texas needs 45,000 new teachers each year, but only 20,000 are getting teaching certificates annually, according to the Christian Science Monitor. The result is that the state may, like some other states, relax the rules on exactly who can teach.

Under Texas’ plan, which has not yet been finalized, college graduates can teach high school if they majored in the subject they’re planning on teaching, and if they’ve passed a subject-area exam and a certification test. They don’t need to have taken any education courses, according to the Monitor. For the first two years, teachers are matched with mentors.

Around the United States, school systems are coping with shortages of teachers, a problem expected to grow with the retirement of the baby boomers. States are providing recruiting and retention incentives for teachers, forgiving loans, appealing to older workers, and looking to other countries for potential teachers.