The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) recently reported that the educator workforce shortage in PA is trending in the right direction, with 97 more Instructional I certificates issued in the 2023-24 school year than the previous year. Also, since the 2021-22 school year PDE has seen a steady increase in the number of Instructional I certificates issued every year. Overall, PDE issued a total of 6,612 in-state and out-of-state Instructional 1 certificates in 2023-24.

The Act 82 Report compiled and published each year by PDE also showed an increase of 793 newly certified PK-4 educators, 85 more health and physical PK-12 educators, and 762 PK-12 special educators over the past two years.

These improvements are the result of efforts to recruit and retain teachers by working collaboratively with leaders in the education field to ensure there is a robust pipeline of educators in place to provide a high-quality education to learners of all ages across the Commonwealth. Some of those efforts include reducing teacher certification processing times by more than 10 weeks, making intern certificates free to aspiring educators, creating a new Career and Technical Education (CTE) program in Education for high school students, developing accelerated certification programming to prospective special educators, and creating and expanding the Student Teacher Support Grant Program to provide a stipend to student teachers.

Earlier this year, the Accelerated Special Education Teacher Certification Program recently produced the first cohort of 142 students completing the program, and announced that the second round of awards for the Accelerated Special Education Teacher Certification Program will provide more than $1 million in funding to 14 postsecondary institutions throughout the Commonwealth.

Additionally, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) opened the second round of applications for the Student Teacher Support Grant Program last week, and more than 3,000 would-be teachers applied in the first 24 hours for stipends to assist with completion of their student teaching placements in the 2025-26 school year.

As of the 2023-2024 school year, Pennsylvania’s teacher workforce stands at 123,190, with the largest shortages in Grades 4-8, Special Education PK-12, Mathematics 7-12, Life & Physical Sciences 7-12, and Career and Technical Education 7-12. The United States Department of Education has designated these areas as critical shortages.