Assistant professor Jacob Kirksey shared his findings with the Texas Legislature.

With a public-school teacher shortage plaguing most of the U.S. for the past many years, especially in Texas, one solution was to put partially trained or uncertified teachers into classrooms. That trend has recently exploded, but not without some major drawbacks recently documented by one Texas Tech University researcher.

Jacob Kirksey is an assistant professor in Texas Tech’s College of Education and associate director in the Center for Innovative Research in Change, Leadership, and Education (CIRCLE). His research focuses broadly on the intersection of education and public policy to enhance educational and economic outcomes for historically underserved populations. He also teaches the college’s statistics sequence: data management for quantitative methods and causal inference and economics of education.

Discovering the Problem

Typically, to become certified in Texas, teaching candidates must have a bachelor’s degree, complete an educator preparation program, pass required exams, complete a state application and pass a background check. They also train to manage student behavior, plan lessons, serve children with disabilities and other important classroom skills.

Kirksey found the path to becoming a teacher without state certification to be less clear; therefore, the state has no way to know if uncertified educators received rigorous training before stepping into the classroom.

Earning his doctoral degree in 2020, Kirksey began as a researcher during the “cohort of COVID,” so there was already discussion about the numbers of people leaving the teaching profession.

“I was interested in exploring how this might be a place and time where we think about alternative certification in a way that acknowledges there could be high-quality ways into the profession that can prepare either nontraditional folks coming in or just equip folks quickly with what they need to be successful in the classroom,” Kirksey explained.

In that journey of trying to find positive models, he found that most alternative certification teachers are prepared in fully online programs where they click through PowerPoints, take a test and are immediately given an intern credential to go into the classroom—with hardly any experience, or none at all. That was the topic of Kirksey’s first paper, which is now under review at a top education journal.

Around the time he submitted that paper, in May, the Texas Legislature put out interim charges, topics legislators would discuss in the 2025 session. Kirksey noticed the subject of uncertified teachers made the list. If legislators were paying attention, he knew further research would be a good fit to inform the coming discussion of existing challenges, and he was already well-versed in working with statewide data.

“I knew this was a moment where the legislature really needed information on this stuff, and I needed more information on it,” Kirksey said. “I did a quick look at certification for this last cohort of first-time Texas teachers, and almost half of them can’t even be found in the (Texas Education Agency, or TEA) certification data.”

After polling colleagues in policy advocacy groups like Educate Texas and The Commit Partnership, Kirksey determined most of them were interested in two pieces of research: showing outcomes in terms of achievement (or lack thereof) and where the bulk of these untrained teachers are teaching.

Armed with those questions, Kirksey compiled and analyzed existing data to compile answers. Kirksey presented his findings to the Texas Legislature’s 13-member Committee on Public Education on Aug. 13.

Kirksey knew if he was going to talk about online certification in a negative light, that still might be seen as perhaps a better alternative than completely uncertified. However, his research, using data from the TEA and other sources, showed that both uncertified and online-only trained teachers have similarly negative effects on students. On average, students with uncertified teachers lose three to four months of learning, while those with online-trained teachers fall behind by about one and a half to two months. And both types of teachers are coming into classrooms in droves.

“The conversation around uncertified teachers often centers on the immediate need to fill vacancies,” the written version of his testimony read. “I fully acknowledge that many school districts are doing their best under challenging conditions, and I work with many of them who are making difficult decisions every day to prioritize their students’ needs, often with limited support. But I also want to challenge the notion that it’s acceptable for districts to rely on uncertified teachers simply because getting the training and classroom experience is seen as unreasonable, and they believe these hires are up to the task of supporting our kids. 

“This narrative does not match the data. In all of my research in Texas, including showing the negative impacts of fully online teacher preparation programs and the benefits of teacher residency models, the single most important indicator of an educator’s impact on students is having spent time in a classroom, watching other teachers and just being around students, before being tasked with leading a classroom all on their own with little to no support.” 

Data Distribution

Kirksey believes there is an assumption these teachers are probably in secondary grades because they know algebra, or they can teach government or U.S. History or CTE (career and technical education). When he looked at the data, they’re actually almost evenly distributed across grades and subjects.

In fact, Kirksey’s research showed uncertified teachers to be overrepresented in special education, elementary education and early childhood. He said that would be really disconcerting to him if he had kids. Also, younger students with these teachers exhibited higher rates of absenteeism compared to their peers, according to the study.

His close examination of data found uncertified educators made up 45% of full-time, new teacher hires. Their distribution across the state was uneven. Rural districts hired these teachers at a rate four times higher than non-rural communities.

Michelle Pittman knows about teaching in a rural area and the negative effects of uncertified teachers. She is in her 20th year of teaching in Petersburg, Texas, an agricultural community of around 1,200 people about 30 minutes northeast of Lubbock. She holds a degree in communication studies from Texas Tech with minors in theater, speech communication and business. She also earned a master’s in educational technology and leadership from Lamar University. 

Pittman is certified, but not in all the subjects she currently teaches. Her teaching responsibilities for which she is certified include sixth-grade technology applications, eighth-grade professional communication, and social media marketing. Other courses she teaches include grades 8-12 art and grades 11-12 principles of information technology. She also directs the school’s one act play program and coaches the debate team as extracurricular activities.

“The number of longer-term subs and uncertified teachers is alarming,” Pittman said. “Many that I have been around struggle to gain footing in the classroom, particularly with our exceptional students. From a personal perspective, I am certified, but not in a subject I have taught the past three years. I am now teaching art. While I do hold a certificate, and that certainly helps me understand pedagogy, I am missing skills related to teaching this particular subject.” 

Different regions of Texas also had noticeable discrepancies in the percentage of certified vs. uncertified teachers hired in recent years. For example, in Region 10, which includes Dallas as well many other smaller districts, about 46% of new teachers were uncertified. In Region 3, which is headquartered in Victoria, roughly 7 in 10 new hires had no certification. At the other end of the spectrum was El Paso’s Region 19, where just less than a quarter of new, first-time teacher hires were uncertified.

In terms of achievement, Kirksey’s study showed students with new uncertified teachers lost the equivalent of about four months of learning in reading and three months in math. However, the data also showed that if an uncertified teacher had previous classroom experience, such as working as a substitute, students performed on about the same level as those taught by newly certified educators.

A Personal Interest

Kirksey explained that teachers in early elementary grades are often tasked with screening students for dyslexia, which can be crucial to their learning process. 

For Kirksey, who has dyslexia, this data point feels personal. He knows if children with dyslexia don’t get the services they need, they can fall behind in reading.

“Qualified teachers are trained to recognize early signs of dyslexia, administer screening instruments, and understand the importance of accurate and timely diagnoses for early intervention and support,” he wrote in his findings. “The hiring of uncertified teachers has likely resulted in significant underdiagnoses of dyslexia.”

The study did, in fact, find that students assigned to an uncertified new teacher in first grade were less likely to receive dyslexia services by third grade.

Pittman also has personal reasons – two, to be exact – for her interest in making sure teachers are certified and trained properly for students on all levels of learning. 

“As a parent, I’ve watched my own two children who are at opposite ends of the exceptional learner spectrum struggle with uncertified teachers,” she said. “My son, who has the added challenge of dyslexia, needs teachers who understand his accommodations and work with those. We had an uncertified teacher that rushed and expected his pace to be that of his peers. On the other hand, my daughter is gifted and needs challenges. I have now dealt with three uncertified English teachers who assumed ‘gifted’ meant she already knew essay and research paper structures.” 

The Obstacles

Kirksey offered that the deprofessionalization of teachers – the reduction of education or training requirements necessary for employment – has been taking place for years. 

“Overall, we’ve been doing the exact same thing to fix the teaching profession for 20 years and none of it has worked,” Kirksey said. “We’ve been talking about the de-professionalization of teaching, actually, since the ‘90s, but I try to be optimistic: I think what we learned from COVID is that it is forcing people to think differently about teaching.”

Kirksey says a starting point could be to identify people, such as former paraprofessionals, who can be effective in the classroom even without traditional certification.

One of the biggest challenges, he said, is most people don’t want to pay either money or time up front – that is, tuition or even taking time off and not making a salary for a year to become a teacher. It’s costly. 

Addressing the certification conundrum, Kirksey said for candidates who do want to be certified, it’s really a consideration between two types of programs: residency or Grow Your Own. 

Both preparation pathways emphasize the importance of real classroom experience before becoming a full-time teacher, ensuring new educators are well-prepared to support student success.

The Solutions

Kirksey’s recommends whatever path incorporates an incentive for people to spend time around kids before leading their own classroom with scant support or supervision. 

The standout attribute of the residency model is teacher candidates spend time in a classroom with a strong mentor teacher where classroom management, pedagogical strategies and other critical teaching responsibilities are modeled.

Texas Tech’s College of Education has several programs addressing teacher training and readiness. Two of them incorporate residency-like practices. TechTeach, launched in 2014, and TechTeach Across Texas (TTAT) started in 2016, are proven solutions to tackle the outcomes posed by uncertified teachers. Students in both programs are undergraduates seeking a degree in education with certification.

TechTeach follows a residency model, where aspiring teachers spend an entire year in a classroom with a seasoned mentor. During this time, they get hands-on experience in classroom management and teaching strategies, learning from someone who is already successful in the role. 

“Instead of being thrown into the deep end on their own, these candidates gradually take on more responsibility,” Kirksey said, “which makes them far better prepared to lead their own classrooms once they graduate.”

Grow Your Own programs aim to recruit and train future teachers from within the community. This includes paraprofessionals, long-term substitutes or even local high school graduates who are familiar with the area and its students. TTAT is an example of this type of program, where future teachers are developed with a focus on staying and teaching in their local communities. These programs are especially important for rural districts, which often struggle to hire qualified teachers due to their location.  

“We need to focus on features of teacher prep programs, for example, time spent in a classroom prior to full-time teaching, tuition remission and stipends, rather than sectors – like, for-profit and alternative pathways,” Kirksey said emphatically. He also believes traditional prep programs will always have a place because there will always be that person who feels like God sent them to be a teacher – it’s their calling. 

He also mentioned, though, that traditional teacher preparation programs at almost every university are declining in enrollment. Therefore, universities have to be agile and more innovative in their approaches to recruiting and preparing teachers.

That means programs like TechTeach Across Texas may recruit someone who doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree, have them get coursework at a community college, then move into the residency model and earn a bachelor’s degree at Texas Tech. This innovative process is a way to involve a very non-traditional person who otherwise wouldn’t go into teaching because they don’t have the preparation or the credential. 

“That’s a way of increasing the pool of candidates to choose from, from the university standpoint,” Kirksey said. “We want to be able to bring people with different experiences into the profession. And I think that then allows us from a research perspective to better understand what is helping keep teachers in the profession.”

On the upside, Kirksey says there are initiatives in place through TEA that programs can apply for that support districts in growing their own, by being able to train and pay these candidates. 

One more recent result of his previous research and testimonies is the State Board of Educator Certification approving a rule change last December establishing a residency certificate that would allow and incentivize programs like TechTeach and TTAT to have alternative requirements because they provide such high-quality preparation with residencies. The measure was subsequently approved by the State Board of Education. 

Now that the residency certificate is going through, Kirksey hopes lawmakers will prioritize funding for residencies in the next legislative session, which would support Texas Tech’s programs as well as other residency initiatives across the state. 

Shedding Light on the Issue

Since his legislative testimony in August, Kirksey’s research has made statewide and national headlines for not only putting real numbers to the challenges and outcomes of hiring uncertified teachers, but for his thoughtful solutions. 

“What I’m excited about is research informing potential decision-making, and whether that’s mine or someone else’s, it is exciting to see," Kirksey said with a grin. “That’s why I got a Ph.D. That’s why I am doing everything I can to make my research relevant. It’s exciting to see people have an appetite for it; for the most part, people are consuming the research responsibly.”  

Kirksey reiterates there is potential in leveraging current and former classroom staff, investing in alternative certification programs that include in-classroom experience, and enhancing data transparency to empower parents and communities.

“I have authored three studies that collectively highlight the impact of educator preparation programs on student outcomes and teacher retention,” he said, bringing all his research together. “As stakeholders and policymakers prepare for the next legislative session, we should recognize the common themes across this research. Taken together, it provides a high-level roadmap for addressing the clear disparities in the quality of preparation statewide.”