An open letter to Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell concerning the onerous and time-consuming process of obtaining teachers certification in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Dear Governor Rendell,
I would like to shed some light about Pennsylvania's teacher certification system, which is broken.
Last August I moved from New York City to Pittsburgh, at which time I started the lengthy process of pursuing my teaching license. There is no license reciprocity between New York and Pennsylvania, due to the fact that New York does not use the Praxis test as a precursor to teacher certification.
After taking my Praxis tests and obtaining the required FBI, State Police, and Pennsylvania Child Abuse Registry clearances, I submitted my complete application for certification and its $40 application fee on October 2nd, 2009. At this time, I was informed that (at the time) it would take approximately 8-10 weeks for my application to be processed.
Upon investigating this matter, I discovered that the reason the application process is so long is that Pennsylvania's Bureau of Teacher Certification and Preparation has, according to internal sources, 20-25 Evaluators who handle 66,000 applications per year.
Accounting for the number of work days in a year, that means that each certification specialist has to handle approximately 12 applications a day; a process that is slowed by having to cross-check the aformentioned FBI, State Police, and Child Abuse Registry clearances. I don't know if this workload is unreasonable due to internal information to which I am not privy.
On December 24th (Christmas Eve- Approximately 12 weeks after I submitted application) I received a letter in the mail informing me that the issuance of my Teacher certification had been placed on hold.
Aparrently, a Pennsylvania state law that was enacted after I had graduated college (and contains no grandfathering clause) requires that I have 6 credits' worth of college-level math in order to obtain a Pennsylvania teaching license. This information was not mentioned on the application, nor was it easily available on the Department of Education's website.
I am boud by this law despite the facts that I a) am pursuing a license to teach English Language Arts and b) have already earned a Masters Degree in Education. This law, in addition to not having a grandfathing clause, does not have a meritorious exemption for those who have earned a graduate degree.
As I only had 3 credits' worth of college level math, I was left with the arduous choices of taking an additional 3 credits of college-level math or passing the SAT 1 in math with a minimum score of 560, a task which in itself requires an extraordinary amount of studious effort.
I chose both options and, five months later, had succeed in the former: I had earned the required additional 3 credits' worth of college-level mathematics. I then submitted my completed application along with the required additional $40 application fee needed to upgrade the emergency certification that I had been granted in the interim.
I paid the $20 needed to send this next-day-air, and it was signed for by somebody at the Department of Education on Tuesday, May 18th. As of yesterday, May 26th, I have not only yet to receive my teachers certification, but have yet to receive any notice of its status.
I contacted the certification specialist who had informed me of this delay and issued me the emergency certification in the first place. She had directed me to send my application to her personally once I had fulfilled the additional certification requirements.
Rather than answering my inquiry, this certification specialist perfunctorily directed me to this website- the Application Process Status website of Pennsyvlania's Department of Education- which informs me that it will take an additional 10-11 weeks to process my application for certification.
This certification specialist informed me that, once my application has been "keyed in" I should be able to check on its status through the above-linked website. As of today, 7 working days after it was accepted by the Department of Education, it has yet to be even "keyed in".
The big picture is that, by all reasonable expectations, it will have taken me almost a whole year to obtain my Pennsylvania Teachers Certification. This cost is onerous in finacial terms as well, as, adding up the cost of my college class, gas to-and-from classes, textbooks, application fees, clearance fees, test fees, and other related expenses, I have spent close to $1,000 in pursuit of my teaching certification.
I have also missed out on numerous full-time teaching opportunities as a result of not having received my teachers certification in a timely fashion. I dread to imagine what the cost of these lost opportunities is.
According to statistics that were, until recently, available on the Pennsylvania Department of Education's website, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is facing a projected shortage of nearly 12,000 teachers (in critical areas such as special education). In an era where public education is in deep trouble, Pennsylvania cannot afford to lose teachers (and potential teachers) by exhiling them to bureaucratic Purgatory.
Had I known that obtaining a teaching certification in Pennsyvlania would cost me nearly $1,000 and a year of my life, I doubt that I would have been as enthusiastic about pursuing a career in public education in Pennsylvania.
I desperately want to teach in Pennsylvania's public schools, but Pennsylvania's broken teacher certification system is hurting, not helping me and many other teachers. By extension, it is also hurting thousands of students who are facing a severe deficit of enthusiastic and well-prepared teachers.
After a year of Purgatory, it is a challenge to keep myself from feeling jaded. If this is the initial- and perhaps biggest- challenge that Pennsylvania teachers face, it does not bode well for the future of Public Education.
Pennsylvania's teachers do whatever it takes do earn their licenses, and they do it at great personal expense. I think I speak for all of Pennsylvania's teachers when I say that we would deeply appreciate it if you would reciprocate our efforts by doing whatever you can to help expediate the issuance of our teaching licenses.
To that end, I'm sure that thousands of administrators, parents, and students would also be equally grateful for your efforts to fix and streamline the Department of Education's teacher certification process.
Best Regards,
James Clarke
English Teacher