we will move to the next number until the issue is resolved and you will retain the balance of your time. b you will notice a clock on your screen that will show how much time is remaining. at onewi minute remaining a clok will turn to yellow. at 30 seconds remaining i will gently tap the gavel to remind members that the time is almost expired.as when your time has expired the clock will turn red and i will begin to recognize the next member. in terms of the speaking order will begin withir the chair and ranking member, then members present at the time the hearing was called to order, will be recognized in order of seniority. and finally, memberser not prest at the time the hearing is called order. finally, the rules of the house require me to remind you that we are set up an e-mail address to which members can send anything they wish to submit in writing at any time over hearings or markups. that e-mail address has been provided in advance to your staff. i want to say thank you to ranking member cole and all the members of the subcommittee joining today's hearing. before we began i want to take a moment to address the tragedy that occurred in texas yesterday. i'm angry. i'm in disbelief to be here once again. yesterday, the students and the teachers at robb elementary school in uvalde, texas, woke up ready to learn, they woke up ready to teach, but 19 children, one teacher and a school employee went to school only to be taken from us forever. it's actually heartbreaking but it isn't anything new. mass shootings are taking the lives of babies, of parents, brothers and sisters everywhere. and you know my community knows it's all too well. tragedy occurred at sandy hook elementary school nearly ten years ago. it took the livesoo of 20 beautiful, innocent souls, babies, and six teachers. and it shook us to our very core. we are gathered today for this hearing to find ways to support our educators, but how can we begin to speak of support for our teachers if theyto are not physically safe at school? it is alarming and it's outrageous that so many children in american schools andch their parents and teachers worry that a senseless act of gun violence could take their lives? the american people and our nation's children are waiting for us to take immediate action, to save innocent kids, and to save their teachers. in today's hearing we will examine the root causes driving the teacher shortage. while we were not expecting yesterdays tragedy to loom over our conversation today, we must keep it at w the top of our mind as we consider the challenges that our educators confrontge yu today nationwide. so i welcome our witnesses today, desiree carver-thomas, research and policy analyst at the learning policy institute. dr. lindsey burke, director of the center for education policy, the heritagepo foundation. ms. randi weingarten, president, american federation of teachers here doctor jane west, education policy consultant. it is a selfless act to choose teaching as a career. the americans who choose thiss path go in with an admirable goal of educating future generations, and helping students of allio ages and backgrounds succeed. i am sure everyone here today remembers a teacher who inspired us along the way. teachers can change the course of their students lives, sharing knowledge and starting students down the path to successful futures. good teachers are essential to our progress as a nation. as a substitute teacher early in my career i bore witness to the challenging work that educators do and the demands that they are put under every day. something that's hard to grasp and lets you in the position yourself. i trust our teachers, and in no, it is our job to provide them with the resources and support that they need to thrive. the witnesses with us today know this well. to represent a diverse group, focus on the wellness of our students and educators. but they also know that the teacher shortage plaguing our nation threatens all those teachers provide your students. if there are not teachers to educate our kids, the very foundation on which our nation progress is built gets dissolved. dissolved. every student deserves a high quality education, teacher shortages threaten our ability to provide that education. the pandemic exacerbate the existing challenges our nation faced to ensure every student has access to the diverse and well-prepared educated -- educators they deserve. .. never -- nearly every state including connecticut-based teacher shortage. in high need subject to special education and that unqualified for the job. the new haven public schools in my district are 150 vacancies for teaching positions. teachers are unfortunately letting the profession. there's been an increase in retirement and their being pipelined into the profession with over 300,000 fewer students enrolling in the teacher preparation program over the past decade. potential teachers struggle with financial concerns with the high cost of preparation but with such burden of student debt and a lack of competitive compensation . 12 teachers are 20 percent less than other college graduate students further creating recruitment and retention issues. our and corporations report found the top reason for teacher departure was paid did not match the stress or the risks of the job. alongside these issues is a high turnover rate double that of arother high achieving nations.a lack of administration support and accountability pressure. lack of opportunity to advance and disappointing working conditions lead teachers to other professions and this was all before the pandemic imposed new burdens on our schools and their teachers . total enrollment in roundergraduate institutions dropped by 6.6 percent including 14.1 percent for community colleges. this concerns me greatly since 80 percent of our educators start their teaching career with a bachelors degree and comedic community colleges and four-year institutions are a unique source of diversity. tragically as a result of teacher shortages that impact the pandemic 55 percent of educators reported in the january national appropriations survey that they would leave the profession sooner than they had planned . these highlight the very real crisis impacting students across the nation. the achievement gap for students of color, low income students and students with disabilities tragically experienced is a lot in large part due to inequitable access to qualified teachers. every child benefits from having diversity and in a nation where the majority are students of color a workforce made up of 20 percent of teachers of color are not enough and tragically this year they projected a shortage of educators trained to meet the needs of students with disabilities in all but 2 states. we have a lot of work to do to address teacher shortages and i intend to lead these efforts. since becoming chair we have increased funding in a bipartisan way for comprehensive educator appropriation programs including the recently passed fiscal year 2022 on the bus. we included $59 million for teacher quality partnership grant programs to fund educator residents and hypertension pathways. $95 million for the ida personnel preparation program to prepare special educators and the higher education faculty and researchers who support their training. $8 million in first-time funding for hawkins centers of excellence we are supporting educator training at hbcus and we provide 2.2 million entitled to funding for the preparations and professional development of teachers. there is more we must be doing. holiness is layout solutions to many of the problems we face and i share their view that proactive investment in pipelines and preparation programs will help us reduce shortages in the years to come. as we deal this subcommittee for fiscal year 2022 funding. we must consider the policies necessary to help increase recruitment and retention . improve working conditions and support teacher advancement. our first secretary of education led support for our steachers into what it is today. surely said and i quote to the teacher america entrusts her most precious resource, her children and asks that they be prepared to face the rigorous of individual participation and the democratic society. as we all know we are experiencing an emergency level of teacher shortage from our witnesses i look forward to learning how this committee and the federal government can continue to address this crisis and ensure that every student has access to a well-prepared well-paid divers stable and supportive teacher. and our country teaching has always been of our most highly revered professions. and what's what we must do everything that we can to keep it thatway . after all, we do entrusts our teachers with our most precious resources and ultimately the future of our democracy. now let me turn to the ranking member cole for his opening answers >> thank you madam chair. obviously this is a difficult morning for all of us and i want to associate myself with your openingremarks . i can't imagine what our friends and neighbors are dealing with in uvalde texas this morning and what each one of those families are going throughread what everybody in that school is experiencing . obviously your most empathetic to those who lost loved ones but thetrauma of ean event like that for every child that wasthere , every teacher that was there , for every parent who hopefully whose child made it through went through hours of wondering. i can't imagine it and so i want to express my deepest sympathy and just prayers and thoughts and sadness at this enormous event. yesterday i actually have the opportunity and always touches you that when you have a hearing likethe one we're having this morning , i had the great privilege of having our teacher of the year in oklahoma in my office yesterday. she teaches in the norman school district where i'm d broadcasting from . jessica testified, terrific em person. went into teaching almost by accident. began a career in accounting and astarted that way and that wasn't for her. she was going to be a teacher and ended up moving to oklahoma, getting her degrees here and it has been just a star. iti think something like that having to deal with what her colleagues in the law are dealing with . as well. and my home system haand more and not just my hearts go out to everyoneinvolved . i want to thank you madam rw chair for calling the hearing and i especially want to thank all our witnesses for being here today. i look forward to these discussions. parents teachers and children across the country are still living from what i believe was one of the biggest policy missteps of this pandemic that that is the closure of many of our nation's public schools for nearly 2 years. the school closures the most vulnerable children the hardest. those with disabilities, those without access to technology or parents who can help them in a virtual environment. children in minority communities and those who have a difficult time learning computers but all children have suffered. the lasting impact of the pandemic on our students has been profound. we've seen concerning rates of mental health illness, missed preventative care, self-harm and ongoing lack of engagement, not to mention the lost academic and study skills and the impact on teachers has been profound as well . when this hearing topic was first announced and i asked ea the staff to prepare background materials on why teachers leave the profession we expected to get into a list of reasons such as i can't learn , i can earn more from outside the classroom and that's certainly true. or there's simply too much red tape. we probably all agree on that too. even things like mask and vaccine mandates and pandemic exhaustion and i expect those are reasons you'll find in many policy papers on this topic but then we started to ask teachers why they left or are you considering leaving and their answers were very sobering. almost uniformly teachers from different parts of the country who left or were thinking of leaving gave some of the samereasons. ecquote, a lack of respect for parents . lack of respect from students . pressure to keep passing students who haven't mastered the material on to the next grade level. or students don't come to class and there's no consequence. administrators don't understand the stresses er teachers are under and just keep adding more to our plate . the sense that many teachers feel undervalued, unappreciated and not understood or respected are choosing to leave their jobs is deeply troubling to me. teaching should be one of the most valued, most appreciated and respected professions in the country. as teachers are laying the foundation not only to train all future professions but also to foster a common bond of stability, understanding and patriotism that will sustainus as a nation in the next ogeneration . there's no single program we can create to change this. this requires a shift in our culture. i don't have the answers but we need to talk about this very real problem and i want to thank our witnesses for all they've done professionally over thecourse of their career for focusing inon this problem and coming before us and sharing their time and expertise . madam chair i want to thank you for holding the hearing and high-yield back the balance of my time . >> i think the gentleman from oklahoma edand i'm delighted to introduce our witnesses. our first is desiree carver-thomas and your written testimony will be included in the record. you're now recognized for five minutes for your opening statement . >> ranking member cole and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to participate.an and i'm policy analyst at learning policy institute . where deeply engaged in research on teacher diversity and a large body of evidence demonstrate teachers of color by cultural knowledge and role modeling that enrich the whole school community. with particularly strong benefits for black students while the analysis found black elementary students with black teachers had higher reading and math test scores and students without black teachers another showed black students once in grades three through five were less likely to drop out of high school and more clikely to aspire to go to college . in other words the benefits of having a black teacher for even one year in elementary school can persist over several years but other studies show tudeclines and expulsions and chronic absenteeism and high rights of academically challenged and bein many of these studies suggest other students including white students gain similar benefits. the orshare of teachers of color has increased from 10 percent of teachers 30 years ago to 21 percent in 2017. still that here is low compared to the 40 percent of people of color in the nation . high turnover rights offset success of recruitment of teachers in recent years and in addition student loan debt impacts teachers and research shows college students of color are more likely than white students to say they changed their career path because of loans that are much greater for black students with a widening gap over time. given those issues college students of color are less likely to enroll in teacher preparation programs that our white college students and more likely to enter alternative certification pathways. these teachers tend to complete less coursework if any teachers who do not get comprehensive tree service preparation lead at 2 to 3 times the rate of those who do. nearly half of newly hired black teachers entering through alternative certification compared to 22 percent of other first-year teachers. halogen teaching conditions can lead to higher turnover. teachers of color are most likely to teach in schools serving the majority of students of color since those contend with a lack of resources . in addition some teachers report discrimination and stereotyping. effective school leaders can implement these conditions. core school leadership however more than doubles the likelihood that teachers will turn over. congress can support diversity and high-quality preparation for the creations process and other legislative vehicles including the $9 million roadmap and while federal recovery funds are and can be used to support a diverse and more prepared workforce sustainedfederal investments are needed . all the existing programs were updated on a bipartisan basis. first underwriting the cost of erteacher preparation can encourage more students of color to pursue teaching and do so through a high-quality program that promotes greater teacher retention . service scholarships cover or reimburse a portion of preparation cost in exchange for a commitment to teach and a high need school oor subject area . these programs are most effective at recruiting when they underwrite a significant portion of cost . residencies apprenticed with effective mentor teachers for a year and a high need school while completing related coursework residents receive financial support and commit to achieve at least two years in their district. nationally about half residents are people of color and residents tend to have higher retention rates than other teachers. congress can update loan forgiveness programs which has not been substantially in updated by congress since george w. bush was president. since 2008 student loan debt has grown by $1 trillion. congress can increase the grant award to $8000 and change the teacher loan ar forgiveness programs to have the federal government make teachers mostly loan payments until they meet the service requirements and retire their debts. congress can expand investments into teaching, the teacher quality partnership program, hocking centers excellent program and supporting effective instruction programs and additionally we do not have a program dedicated to making high need and advanced credentials more affordable . next mentoring induction into the collaboration and coaching to support beginning teachers of color, new teachers who do not receive portraits are twice as likely to leave teaching as those re who do there is no federal funding dedicated to this purpose. finally robust federal funding for high retention pathways is a leadership to develop school conditions which can help teachers of color teach for the long haul. improving research demonstrates there is an urgent need for a well-prepared workforce and strong bipartisan support for congress to play a role in this endeavor. i look forward to answering any questions members have 's thank you and let me next introduce our witness doctor lindsay burke. doctor burke your full testimony will be entered into the record and you're now recognized for five minutes and thank youfor being here . >> i'm the market a fellow and director of education center for policyat the heritage foundation . thank you chair and ranking member cole for the opportunity totestify today . we are brokenhearted about the events that transpired in uvalde texas yesterday. at rob elementary school and are prayers are with the families. you're here to talk about teachers and protect our students kiand we know that americans asked why we treasure and value our teachers. because that's who they are. although there has been teacher turnover as a result of the covid-19 pandemic teacher vacancies have to be considered in the larger context of ongoing increases in hires. today teachers ycomprise only half of education jobs. this is part of a longer-term trend that doctorbenjamin has been tracking for many years . since 1950 public schools have personnel at a rate nearly 4 times that of the rate of growth in student enrollment and while the increase in new teacher hires was nearly one half times the increase instudents , the number of non-teachers as administrative and other staff increased more than seven times that of student enrollment. so it school district want to attract more high-quality teachers, what policies should state legislators and school boards pursue? first they should remove carriers to entering into the classroom. the teaching profession is constrained by policies that mandate aspiring teachers attain steeper credentials at substantial cost research demonstrated there is little if any connection between teacher certification and a teacher's impact ton student academic baachievement. the absence of a relationship between teacher certification and teacher effectiveness is most noticeable in this negligible difference in outcomes between traditionally certified alternative research five and uncertified teachers . as researchers thomas kane and douglas biggers found to put it simply teachers very considerably enin the extent to which they promote student learning but whether a teacher is certified or not is largely irrelevant to predicting his or her effectiveness. so how can we ensure excellent teachers find their way to the classroom and are encouraged to stay? by making it easier to enter the profession and rigorously evaluating teachers once they're there. states and districts should tackle reform. move from defined-benefit pension grants in which 85 percent of schoolteachers are enrolled compared to 15 percent of private-sector workers to design contribution retirement plans like 401(k)s popular in the private sector. switching from defined-benefit to defined contribution plans to provide retirement affordability across state lines, allow them to rollover account balances if they change jobs and cumulate equal benefits. third, districts should eliminate last in first out policies and reward excellence. too many schools continue to use seniority-based layoffs when staffing impacts are made. this last in first out policy should favor staffing decisions based on teacher effectiveness and competence, not years in the school n building. finally states and school districts should and the non-teaching staff hiring spree. total inflation adjusted spending has increased 152 percent from 1972 2018. teacher salary increase 7.3 percent over the same time period. if districts want to attract and retain high quality teachers they should refrain from increasing the number of nonteaching staff in public schools and instead revamp teacher compensation systems to better reward those teachers who have a positive o impact on student performance . public school districts have the tools and considerable financial resources at their disposal to attract and retain quality teachers know that outcome requires making different decisions than what school districts have made historically. they should begin by eliminating certification barriers, tackling pension reform, ending last in first out policies and for tailing the nonteaching insert. i look forward toanswering any questions . >> thank you very much and may we recognize our next witness randy weingarten. you are recognized for five minutes thank you chair and ranking member cole. i'm randi weingarten and i am still a teacher on leave from my social studies position as a high schoolteacher in brooklyn new york . we are all in morning today. it's only in america that parents are not assured that their kids will be safe from gun violence at school and while educators have an important job yesterday they are moreimportant today than ever . and i'm here to talk about the staffing shortages facing america's public schools. i have been working mon this issue for about 40 years or so and about how to solve the crisis and how congress can help and staffing shortages are not just a school problem, their evinternational crisis. every year nearly 300,000 teachers leave the profession . two thirds of them for retirement. frankly, we've done many many surveys and the pensions are one of the things that keep teachers in teaching. turnover is almost double that of any other occupation of their peers and students in schools that serve the majority students of color with those students who live in poverty experienced higher teacher turnover rate and covid has made this worse. i'm going to kick off 4 things i suggest we do but they all go to the question what would make you recommend a career in teaching to your own child or grandchild particularly in public schools and what can you doto help . number one, we can actually do much more in terms of recruitment and preparation of a gohigh-quality diverse teaching force over 80 percent of teachers are now white and female while students of color make up about 50 percent of the student oopopulation. our ranks should reflect this diversity so the grow your own programs which educate support staff to become certified teachers is a really good program and historically black colleges and other minority serving institutions will prepare half of all teachers of color in thiscountry . we can actually on them more. number two retaining teachers is as important as recruiting teachers and so i would urge us to give educators the time, the tools, the trust to teach well. that means reducing class size more individual attention and increasing planning timewhich is what the countries that compete with us to . and it also means enabling educators to create teams in terms of sharing workload. the investment in committee schools and mental health support will keep more teachers acting around services of schools will actually help kids and help teachers teach and identify problems we see before we see these kind of awful situations that we saw last night. let's actually trying to deal with paperwork. last week new mexico governor stephanie grisham signed an executive order to reduce paperwork chand administrative burdens on educators, enabling them to focus on students. this as well as salaries is the number one issue teachers talk about as well and as a result if we actually trying to start thinking about how to change the accountability, we can reduce paperwork. we need to make an accountability system in line to what we case you close to the paper pencilsystem we have now . obviously compensation is important. teachers make 20 percent less than what they can earn in other similarly skilled professions and we are a profession. let's find ways to deal with that and there's a whole bunch of federal programs that can help us do that. also do something in terms of public service loan forgiveness as some of the other speakershave said . the program can help us reduce teacher debt and that can be changed in that way. the teach program can also do the same thing the last thing i would say is let's actually increase collective bargaining. passive public-service freedom to negotiate. give teachers the right to bargain. make them part of the solution. that's what we have done mein places that are moving forward. what we should do everywhere. when teachers have agency and their work, kids thrive. thank you very much. >> thank you and let me know recognize doctor jean west and again your full testimony will be read into the record and you're now recognized for h five minutes . >> thank you chair. thank you ranking member cole. ranking members of the committee i'm pleased to be here to talk about the critical shortage of special educators facing our nation. in 1975 honest and active the individuals with disabilities education act . enabling students with disabilities to gain full access to education after decades of exclusion. for 47 years the law has required a free appropriate education for every student with a disability. no matter how significant disability. as a special educator before the enactment of the law and afterwards i can tell you what a difference it makes. the challenge we face today is one of fully implementing the law. while adea acquired services are delivered by qualified personnel is increasingly not happening. the critical obstacle is the prices of special educator shortage.among special education teachers that are professional school psychologists early intervention providers, speech therapists, th tspecialized instructional personnel and more. our freaking capacity in higher education to prepare special educators is the pipeline for the future. the pervasive challenges other witnesses have outlined of high student debt, no teacher salary, declining respect for the profession and stress of the pandemic upset special educators as well. for special education the combination of a drop of fully prepared new teachers and high attrition rates has generated an urgent challenge for today and the future. the scope of the shortage is alarming. 48 states and the district of columbia report as shortage of special education teachers outpacing shortages in other fields including math and science. 90 percent of school e districts report special education shortages. 50 percent ew by from 2014 to 2016 and that number continues to grow. in some states like f california over half of new special educators are not fully prepared. enrollment in special education preparation programs as has also declined by 16 percent in recent years which does not bode well for the future. we confront this crisis tiat the same time the number of students requiring education services has increased. 17 percent 2001. states and districts have had to scramble to fill special education positions and in ways that are unsustainable will exacerbate the problemrather than a . lower standards for certification and increase in the use of long-term substitutes and the expansion of short-term programs which play people as teachers without the needed skills and knowledge will keep the schools open but they will not generate the results that we want for students with disabilities nor expand the qualified workforce. the dsshortage leads to larger caseloads for special educators with less time for students withcomplex needs . and stretched too thin special educators burnout and students are ulunderserved. we know preparation matters. generally teachers are underprepared such as those entering the profession through emergency and alternative pathways do not offer robust teaching and a full curriculum are 2 to 3 times more likely to leave than those who are fully prepared. research shows comprehensively prepared educators are more likely to stay in the field and are best equipped to deliver results for students. swithout qualified personnel outcomes suffer. (shared with me her journey with her son with dyslexia was presenting great obstacles to him in learning to read aresulting in tremendous frustration. when he gained access to fully prepare teachers with expertise in reading instruction he blossomed. today at age 27 is applying to a doctoral program. this is the difference that highly qualified teachers make. multiple innovative solutions are in place across the country in recruitment strategies for high school students, grow your own programs, use of teacher candidates. we know what strategies work. a greater investment will enable them to meet the moment. 2 federal programs with solid proven track records in carrying on the solutions and a newly folded one will address the dire lack of diversity in our workforce. i heard the subcommittee to provide greater investment and personnel preparation under id ta and hawkins center for excellence program. in summary students with disabilities need access to a well-prepared diverse experience and stable educator workforce. a greater investment in these programs is urgently needed. >> now i want to say thank you to all the witnesses for the outstanding testimony and it's a struggle i think for all of us s. for those of you who been engaged and involved with the teaching profession and educating students and understanding what they learn, i know your heart are full and thank you. for carrying on. it's important, it's an important discussion and by the way this is the first teacher shortage hearing we've had since the pandemic so it's particularly important. and in addressing the teacher shortages some states are lowering the qualifications of becoming a teacher. for example connecticut state board of education voted to authorize emergency certification that allowed individuals to fill teaching positions in which they are not certified. a practice the state ended 30 years ago. i have two questions here. miss carver-thomas what does the research say about the importance of having access to fully certified teachers and doctor west, what is the real-life impact on students with disabilities and their families when students are faced with a person earning a special educator who does not have the training or skills to teachthem ? doctor west. no, miss carver-thomas first. >> thank you for the tquestion chair padelauro. teacher certification matters in several ways and i can talk about a few of those including student achievement, teacher shortages which we are here to discuss and financial costs. when it comes to student achievement there is research showing there is an association between all certification and student outcomes. a study led by one policy institute researcher looked at california districts and the relationship between teacher characteristics and he student outcomes and found districts with multiply credentialed teachers have greater student outcomes for black and latino students and this was after controlling for a range of other school and teacher characteristics. when it comes to shortages we know that when there are enough fully credentialed teachers to go around, districts and schools will turn to emergency credentialed teachers, teachers are not fully prepared to teach their subject matter and these are teachers who are more likely to leave that school or profession entirely creating a level of return that creates instability which disrupts the institutional knowledge, disrupts professional learning. disrupts student learning and we know that that disproportionately impacts use of color and low income families who bear the brunt of that kind of teacher demographics. there are more under credentialed teachers serving those students. and then when it comes to financial costs, it costs money to recruit higher, support, trained teachers with a bring into the classroom and if those teachers are coming in andout having to constantly be replaced , those costs walk out the door with those teachers. those investments do. as those are investments that can be put to better use first. >> doctor west, the impact on students with disabilities i like to start by reminding us who we're talking about. we're talking about students with autism. we're talking about students with intellectualdisabilities . we're talking about humans who are deaf. students who are blind. we're talking aboutstudents with learning disabilities. these are the students we're talking about . imagine going into a classroom without the proper preparation and seeking to teach a nonverbal student with autism. these are significant skills that need to be acquired and developed duringcomprehensive and intense preparation . there's simply is no way, no substitute for developing that skill set. i was talking to a parent yesterday who has a six-year-old with down syndrome and she was sharing with me he has developed wandering away behaviors which is not uncommon in humans with down syndrome. the strategy that one might commonly use such as being very firm and come back here, don't do that particularly if it's a situation at home reinforces a here. research shows us there are other ways to manage this behavior will not reinforceit . and if you are aware of that the behavior escalates and that's just one example. i also want to point out that many students with disabilities, most students are in general and classrooms most of the time so that partnership between vessel educators with that unique skill set and the content knowledge of general educators is critical to the delivery of strong academic services and social emotional support to all students. so special educators also have a great investment in fully prepared fully credentialed educators in other fields . >> thank you. just a note. i mentioned in my opening comments that early on in my career i finished graduate school and looking for a job one of the things i decided to do while i was looking was to make myself available to be a substitute teacher. i graduated with a ba and a. and i would tell you i was called as a substitute teacher just about every single day. i did not ask for it. you're in essence you're trying but you're trying to manage the classroom and keep it together and not have that but we do have substitute teachers and without the trading there is a lost especially if the teacher is ill and out for a length of time. i want to comment on the special and. i went to a special ed class one day and the teacheris well-qualified . left left the lesson and was around the holidays and that was to make decorations, christmas decorations from macaroni. well, i'm not trained as a special ed teacher. i don't know the balance between discipline and compassion in that sense. my instincts were all on the compassion side. whenever these children were going to do they were going to do. i would tell you by noontime and were almostneedy and macaroni in this class . it's numerous but nevertheless i don't have the skill to be there and you need to have trained people. and i take your view of needing trained people these teachers so wet that i'll yield to my ranking member mister cole. >> i think your earlier trainingdid well . let me start with you doctor book. this is any of you i would invite answer. we know we obviously have shortages, acute shortages in specific areas. special ad obviouslyhas been mentioned . math and science also. and yet in most school systems the pay is pretty uniform based on seniority and credentials overall. is there marriage in doing what they do at the college level just as a guy that was a history professor in college i can tell you i didn't make what anybody in the engineering department made or anybody at the business school may . and i don't regards them back. i don't mean that critically ofanybody . it was just my skill was more common, more available than theothers . would it be worthwhile having pay differentials in specific shortage areas to try to attract more people inand retain them for longer ? >> thank you represented that would be worthwhile thinking about how districts can differentiate gfor high demand areas not only for high demand areas but to differentiate a to reward teachers who are doing excellent work in the classroom . forgetting their cohorts to learn a year or a year and a half worth of learning in a years time to reward those exceptional teachers but schools have largely made a decision to take existing resources with with as i mentioned earlier as increase significantly over the past half century and to use those taxpayer resources to fund and hire nonteaching staff instead of putting that into something like differentiated teacher salaries. if we look at the recent data if you go back to the year 2000 from 2020 19 while the number of students and teachers in public schools just increased about eight percent the number of principles and assistant principals increase 37 percent. and the number of school district administrative staff increase 80 percent. so again this is about decisions, about choices districts are making and we can look at those overall aggregate numbers . back to 1950 i mentioned spending increasing significantly since that time period but part of it is this increase in nonteaching f staff. the number of students increased 90 percentfrom 154 but the number of teachers increase 243 percent . the number of administrators and nonteaching staff increase hundred nine percent overthat same time period . so you're right, pay is critically important. rewarding excellent teachers is important but that will require making different decisions in schools than we have in the past . >> i invite everybody else to put their thoughts on this to participate. where the federal government, we cannot and should not be mandating these kind of things . we can incentivize behavior so like tithose programs and we tried to do that on some occasions but as you think broadly ifis there anybody doing what we're talking about? any particular system you would say they approached this a little adifferently than most of the states this is working better. >> i think what we can point to it's something we saw in the wake of covid which is how diverse the delivery of this instruction is becoming and the way in which that's enabled individuals to enter teaching and be rewarded. if we think about learning costs and microschools , it's really innovative approaches thatare on the ground . these options enable teachers to be paid directly from families and really you can imagine a situation where the sky is the limit in terms of earning for these instructors and hopefully that is where we get to to a point where these excellent and the man teachers are rewarded handsomely . >> i don't have a lot of time left but let me turn to you because i couldn't agree more with your basic point about the importance of diversity and kids seeing people that look like themselves pursuing the profession. we know our record is not what any of the others would want to be in this regard. is there a particular place or state or system in your opinion that are handling this better that we should look at?. are aggressively recruiting for diversity and achieving this goal? >> thank you for the question . absolutely i. there are programs like those funded by some of the partners i talked about today like teacher residencies that have become very popular across the country. and there are states like california that are investing , making considerable investments in teacher residency programs and we know these programs tend to have much higher levels of diversity than the teacher workforce at large and that's largely because it's a comprehensive appropriations that see a stipend during their residency h. they receive ongoing mentoring support. they receive typically a full school year while they're also completing coursework and they tend to have much higher retention rates than do teachers prepare for other pathways so it's very promising model that we see being invested in and in california we're starting to see and take in teacher preparation enrollment which is really we despise is a national trend because of those reference but there's still quite a bit of need so these are still so much needed just for purposes of their finding for whatever reason i don't see time on my schedule . i'm guessing i'm about to use my time. if i've gone over i apologize but dit might help if there some way we can get displayed onthe screen and with that i yelled back . i think you are muted not a chair. >> i thought i did that. in any case this weingarten had her hands raised. i would buy additional time s here, go ahead. >> congressman cole i think that there are ways in which we can do and there have been very different collective bargaining agreements that have differentiated pay for shortage areas, for special needs like doctor west was talking about. the programs that paid for performance did not work. in fact they actually hurt. you're seeing flow slow walk away from all the race to the top paper performance because what's happening is that people actually left behind each schools where you need to have kids. you need to have the best and most well-prepared teachers so that they for shortage areas is a really good idea and we have done that in a bunch of different contracts but the bottom line is you actually have to have decent pay as the basis of it. people have to rely year after year on being able to feed their families and being able to rely on that kind of income that's important as well and then you can do various differentials and the last thing i would say is i agree with doctor burke that there have been too many non-classroom positions that have been created but a lot of that is because of paperwork and the federal accountability system. erin terms of, that's part of the reason we are seeking to change the accountability system to focus on what kids need to know and be able to do and make sure the data is there but what's happened is that there's search for data and there's more and more time that we're focused on data collection as opposed to on teaching and that's why it's one of the number one rm issues that current teachers have in terms of saying let me teach, give me the time tools and trust so that i can meet the needs of my kids. >> i'm shocked the federal government would generate paperwork . [laughter] thank you madam chair, i feel that. >> mister content. >> thanks for having this hearing. i brought it up three weeks ago navy if even that and this is agvery quick coming together so thank you for having this. thank you to all witnesses, all of you provided very concrete examples of suggestions what we should do. miss weingarten, a number of years in my state in wisconsin we had in 2010 when scott walker was governor he did an attack on public employee and in doing that attack the outcome of that within a year or two the madison school of education one of the best in the country for a public nt university drop to about 40 percent of applications going to the school that they had fired. there really was a respect issue for the profession that we saw directly out of what happened. right now in wisconsin the starting teacher salary could look at so this might be a couple of years old was $26,535 which is in the lowest 25th percentile. i have fast food restaurants advertising$19-$20 per hour . if you're teaching with the fast food job you're going to have not a lot of people looking at that as a career path . my own sister-in-law for over a decade and quit teaching because of the disrespect that now happened when she got in a couple of different states. through the laws in wisconsin . so the disrespect for the profession i think that we saw. the pay issues and top of that that the challenges with covid andeverything else have had an impact . madison school district used to be an unattainable school district for many first-time teachers and now they are getting two or three applications for some positions that they. there's a change in my state i can look at. a lot of it leads to what you said. what can we do around that issue, getting teachers respect again for the profession within the district and the respect of the salary is not in the bottom 25thpercentile ? >> ilbut those are two things that as a schoolteacher for number one, that's why i said to all of you because there's a lot of common sense involved here and a lot of the research about what actually happens in rschools. you cannot control for every single factor that happens in schools. so that's why i say and i ask you what would make you as a person recommend a career in teaching to your child or grandchild? and it comes down to 2 things . teachers thank god don't go into teaching because they want tomake a difference in other people's lives . that's something, that's two teachers are. but what we can do is we can make their lives such that they don't walk into school pits in their stomach or a pit in their throat. that they can have freedom and latitude to meet the needs of their kids when they see those needs . you can call that trust, you can call that time. you can call that respect it comes down to where not on amazon. we have to have some latitude to teach in some kind of benefit of a sense that what we're doing is right. that's number one. number two is the preparation and doctor carver thomas said this about how these residency programs, but grow your own programs really help you walk in with that preparation. is both preparation as well as the preparation so that you know the circumstances you're walking into and the second big thing is pay. so that people can actually raise a family on the pay that they have. >> in this appropriations process i think there's specific suggestions from doctor carver-thomas we could do immediately appreciate that. and this budget what can we do must immediately miss weingarten that you think would be helpful? >> there are three things you can do. you can increase the investments in terms of the augusta hawkins investment program so we can focus on our own residency programs particularly with hbcu's. you can increase money so teachers can meetthe needs of kids and number three , just like the art money and the i.d.e.a. money, these things can go into how we can increase the compensation for teachers. >> thank you very much and i yelled back madam chair. >> i think that's where we are. yes, doctor harris. >> thank you madam chair thanks to everyone who's appearing today . i don't know what's going on in wisconsin but in baltimore county the starting salary is $49,900 so it's probably a local issue and certainly the federal government shouldn't be involved in. that's in all be negotiated at the local level. anyway, i have a question for miss haweingarten. do you thinkteachers should be able to strike ? >> doctor harris, i think that we should have these kind of collective-bargaining programs. >> i have five minutes and a lot of questions. do you think teachersshould be able to strike ? >> i think that teachers should do everything they can . >> do you think teachers should be able to strike? it's a simple question because other a service like law enforcement taken collective-bargaining g but they can't strike because we think their role is important in the community. the you believe that teachers should be able tostrike ? it's a yes, sir number either you do or you don't. >> osir, i believe that every single worker in america ... >> you're not answering my question. ma'am, you're not answering the question. i understand why but it's embarrassing that teachers go out on strike . these are professionals who are supposed to, some of the most important part of children's lives are our education and they go on ndstrike sometimes for weeks without these children getting an education. doctor burke let me ask you. >> if you would let me answer . >> ma'am, i'm moving on. i have a limited amount of 'ttime . doctor burke, was a history of unionization because it of years we have gotten worse teaching over the last 50 years and at the same time unionization in teaching increase so is in the inability to i won't say weed out but to discourage teachers who really are good because we for instance merit pay is discouraged where if you teach better you get paid more instead of just a negotiated salary scale? could you run through the history of negotiation? >> unionization has been with the teaching profession for a long time . in part in the early 20th century it's an effort in professionalization but to your point that has really morphed into something entirely different etand we can capture institutions like the college of education which we if we want to talk about ways to reward effective teachers and lower their cost of entering the teaching profession union supported policies like rewarding teachers for getting a masters degree forces teachers to go in the college of education and take on more debt than they would have we know at the same time that has no impact on their ability to increase student outcomes. if you look over all salary workers in america and wage and salary workers union members about 10.3 percent overall. however alone public school teachers that raise source to 70 percent and it's the highest unionization rateof any employment sector . that means millions of members are paying tax exempt dues relative to the national education association and that matters for this conversation because generally speaking unions and the opposing many of the reforms that hold promise for attracting qualified teachers . removing certification barriers to entry, addressing unfunded pension liabilities. providing merit pay, etc. and i would add like i think many would agree many of these union policies really exacerbated teacher frustration during the pandemic by forcing school for two years to remain closed and forcing educators to engage in emergency room instruction. so many of these policies that are really plagued public education for a century are rooted in t policies supported by special interest groups . >> on the pension reform is this an impediment, the lack of pension reform an impediment to mobility of teachers to districts ? >> not necessarily between districts is between states. an impediment to their ability to move date to stay or to consider if they want to exit the profession and find other employment to do that. that could weigh on your inmind time if you're considering entering the teaching profession nothaving that flexibility . >> iq, i yield back. >> miss clark. >> thank you madam chairwoman andthank you to all the witnesses for being here today . >> ... some of my colleagues about just how horrifying it is to watch what happened and do -underscore that we are not powerless to act and we have not been powerless but we have failed are students in our teachers by not acting to reduce gun violence in this country and the school massacres are not freedom in the shooting the children in shooting children and their teachers in the classroom is not an extension of a constitutional right. we have to do better and we will. i want to talk to you about another issue facing our country and will not allow us to recover and address this teacher shortage issue fully if we don't tackle the lack of child care. when we look at early educators, the median hourly wage in this country is $12.24, not enough to raise a family on. one third of headstart decisions are unfilled, citing compensation as the number one reason why they are not taking those jobs. so my question, and it is good to see you, can you speak to why a reliable child care system and availability of child care benefits is an important tool for teacher recruitment and retention and how, as we work to raise compensation and benefits for teachers we can also focus on early educators and why that is so important. >> thank you presented of burke, i want to say i grew up in a system where we did not have the right to strike. the right to strike should only be a last resort, never a first resort, only last resort and that's what most teachers do. i just wanted to make that clear what i would have said to that answer. in terms of childcare, one of the things all of you are working on in the child tax credit childcare is how do we actually in america reduce the cost for families so people can actually do the kind of work, deal with theal things they want to do. unfortunately in america if you are wealthy enough, childcare is not an issue. c if you are not, childcare is a huge issue so it's an issue when you have jobs that are outside of being an investment banker or equities manager or something olike that. incoming jobs or teacher, whether it's 50 to 60000 lucy in baltimore or substandard wages in early childhood, if you don't have childcare, how are they goo be able to do that? it is how you drive down the cost in western europe, there's a package of things that happen for workers so they don't have to think about paying for it that way, they don't think about healthcare, childcare, they don't have to think about retirement security so just live on those wages. cutting costs t whether cross or childcare are hugely important. >> thank you for that. to ms. thomas, i want to ask as we are looking at trying to increase our amount of teachers and early educators so we can help solve the childcare crisis and robust public schools we want, what are you seeing as key barriers keeping interested students from entering the teaching profession? >> thank you. i would say a key barrier is affordability apprehensive preparation, student debt has increased in the past several years ander yet our programs designed to help college students afford those costs have not been substantially updated by congress since 2008 so the barriers are even higher for potential teachers of color who research shows are more sensitive to that and potential wages. >> thank you so much. i see my time has expired. i yield back. >> thank you, madam chair, doctor berg and the members of the panel, thank you for joining us. i have a question based on your research, where are you seeing more interest in aspiring teachers, is it a geographic issue, error there certain fields of study your finding more or less interest in being teachers? >> i think itte might be the tye of schools teachers can teach in, we are seeing a renaissance and classical education, a gross in the classical charter school movement and as a result of that, we are seeing classical charter sector is working to create their own teacher educationn pipeline and i think it's partly in response to the fact that we are seeing so much in that particular sector. >> how are they creating that pipeline? strike me things that as often he will have students, i'm sympathetic, we've heard a lot about the debt students have as they finish preparation for teaching and the length of time, what kinds of innovation are you seeing that's making it easier for people to transition to teaching? >> within the classical sectors, some of the schools partner with existing colleges and education, where thereies aligned in terms of the curriculum and etc. but some of these k-12 schools are workingre in-house to educate and prepare teachers to enter into their classrooms. as the undergraduate level if you have the foresight to major in education, you can enter the teaching profession politically easily. however, if you decide later on after getting your bachelors degree you want to enter the classroom, for most that means going back to school, getting a masters degree, getting 40000, whatever it might be to earn a masters in two years and that is untenable for a lot of people so it really does come back to reducing barriers to entry across every type of k-12 sector whether charter, public, private, etc. and making sure career professionals in particular who would be excellent educators have thend ability to do so without spending a lot of time and money with those credentials. >> i'm sensitive to the role of the federal government versus state government, local school boards and everything, what role does the federal government have making those kinds of invasions, flexibility more widely available?y >> one good option would be allow flux ability with all existing federal education dollars, it's important to remember the federal government is a small stakeholder and overall k-12 financing between 8.5 and 10% of overall k-12 financing in a given year so these are from a funding perspective and good constitutional governance perspective largely has toal happen the state and local level but the federal government should provide flexibility with that small slice of funding it does provide through the taxpayer first and allow states to put the existing education dollars toward any lawful education purpose under state law so if the state wanted to take the funds and use it to revamp teacher compensation or choice options for students focus on reading, whatever the state might wantte to do in conjunction to do that with the existing funds. >> thank you. ms. weingarten, i wonder if you could respond, it seems, i hear a lot from people in michigan concerns by parents who feel in public schools their values are being undermined and their voices are not being heard. are you hearing that and if so, what can be done to restore the confidence t parents have in our public education system? >> thank you for that question. what i hear a lot is a lot of frustration. teachers and parents want more of a voice in terms of what's happening in terms of a day-to-day basis andg what i'm hearing this year is a lot of people want more of a way, meaning instead of kids come back with a lot of these, we want to try to figure out how to meet the needs, i've heard a lot of we don't have a lot of guidance counselors or enough nurses or these kinds of things but what we are also seeing in part of why aft is pushing are reading over the world program, we need to get back to the basic of focus on the reading, the community school work chair has champions and focus on how we create pathways for jobs and colleges. >> thank you, iav see i have overextended my stay here so i yield back. >> that's okay, the discussions are good.ha >> thank you, madam chair. before i get to my questions, i want to briefly echo the sentiments and colleagues have shared about the horrible shooting at the school in texas and obviously our hearts are broken, those of us who are moms or grandmas or dad and grandpa's, there is really nothing worse than learning about these terrible incidents, we got to do something about this. that is my call to action to everybody, we've got to do something legislatively and play a role helping to get our nation in a better place. lots of ideas out there that we need to take that up as well. thank you to our ranking member also for holding this hearing. i know on a personal level how important the topic of teacher shortage is. we've done a series of these economic roundtables across 14 counties that i serve in this congressional district in illinois. a recent one at every single one of them, i kid you not, every single one we heard about teacher shortages. obviously when we got something so important, foundational profession of teaching and we are having trouble attracting and keeping educators across the country, that's why the hearing is so important. in the state of illinois we have about 4100av unfilled teaching positions, paraprofessionals, otherpr staff, 4100. so obviously there are a lot of factors that lead into that but get down to it and randi weingarten, i know you know this probably as well as anybody, if not better than anybody on this zoom, you know we arere asking a lot of our teachers and staff while paying them too h little so we've got a bill that creates incentives for teachers to stay in the profession. one of them i'm part of is tcalled repeating educators tas added investment now act, retain act that would give refundable tax credit for teachers and title i schools so credits would start at 5800 and ramp up to 11600 to retain staff. can you talk about whyal incentives like those under retain act are important and essential to bring teachers into the workforce incentivize themo to stay in the workforce? >> thank you, congresswoman. any incentives, let me say we are working, we have a shortage that will resent it findings and a big focus as part of our convention in july, some of what i talked about today is what we are bringing forward but what you focus on is so important because what happens teachers are better than their first year. doctor burke, i started as a elawyer, i was an alternative, i wish i had a residency program. i was not a good teacher in my judgment i first year. i needed the support i got from other people so my third and fourth year i was a much better teacher. those were bonuses, when people are divided, are they going to stay in teaching or not? that kind of retention bonus is important, that kind of retention is important because then we keep people in the profession and they can raise a ndfamily and live in communities and teach so that the work you are doing, it's important giving us the funding to be able to obtain people in the third, fourth, eighth and ninth and tenth year. >> so we can keep along these lines of the 14 counties i mentioned, 11 of the 14 are very role, and 5% of the dog 5000 residents in the town and 60% or thousand fewer. we are seeing shortages in rural areas in a big way, wondering if you have thoughts about different ways we should tackle this problem in rural areas versus urban settings. >> and we are starting to think about that but you and i have had the conversation around what we did in peoria and having housing career tech ed facility that ended up being used for several rural counties in areas, transportation issues and things but then you can figure out how to cluster megan's together so we have the expertise of a physics teacher or teacher of calculus, we've been doing that in west virginia where we've been running a partnership adjacent to the school district about how we make sure we have expertise so rural areas do not have this kind of deficit. we need to get great teachers who are deeply knowledgeable. >> thank you, ms. weingarten. my time has expired. chairwoman, i yield back. >> thanks very, very much. congressman kline. >> thank you, madam chair. thanks for being here today on this hearing. according to virginia department of education annual report on critical shortage areas, top ten shortage areas this year are special ed, elementary, pre-k-6 and middle grade six through eight, then career and technical education, math grades six through 12. it our priority to ensure students get a good education and stems from good teachers. we need to address the issue head on and find a way to help our state get students back on track after the closure of schools for almost two years.ia virginia had an especially aggressive shut down under democratan led governor and general assembly. virginia schools are struggling as a result according to a new report presented to our current governor. data demonstrates no or lower student achievement and reading and math. reduced transparency and eroding parent confidence in the common wealth public schools. our government mentioned the significant lowering of expectations, lack of transparency of data, week accountability for results that and today so i'm hopeful new government will help us get in the right direction. let me ask doctor burke, how would you define a teacher shortage? is there a national definition or is this more of a state and local nuanced issue? >> thank you. i think it's that, local nuanced issue as you put it. we see differences across the country, certainly not a national problem that needs addressed by congress and i would show decisions made by local public school districts and states across the country we look just from 1992 -- 2014, we saw spending increased 27% while teacher salaries fell 2% over the same time. so public schools have chosen to fund the staffing search rather than direct increasing taxpayer-funded dollars to hire teacher salaries. >> absolutely, i saw in your testimony statistics, inflation adjusted for people spending 1992op to 2014 by 27% teacher salaries fell by 2% because public schools chose to r fund nonteaching staffing search rather than ever-increasing funding spending to hire teacher salaries and i'm sure that problem is worse in some states as opposed to others, some states are probably doing better. it goes to show why we should encourage states to address the problems as needed as opposed to imposing a one-size-fits-all requirement. can you talk about how the covid mandates contribute to loss ofed teachers? >> sure. i think it's vitally important to education and grad every other union is standing up for them. thank you, madam chair, i will back. >> thank you, congresswoman -- wait a minute, hang on a second. i am being told -- excuse me, technological difficulties appeared to have arisen. we can't proceed with a fully virtual during until the lifestream is working. a situation where a couple of remote members elect out of participating because equipment of the hearing room breaks or remote room breaks. having a virtual hearing with no lifestream break housing committee rule that have no flexibilityin apparently. come on, guys. this is technology. we can move on. congresswoman, go ahead. >> thank you, madam chair. thank you for this hearing, what a day. let me thank our panelists for being here today and for your tremendous work and leadership. let me associate myself with the horrific massacre yesterday. killing two teachers and staff, it's an epidemic and it's got to stop. i'm getting so worried, people are becoming immune to this. i'm wondering now, the teachers profession how the epidemic of gun violence in terms of wanting to go into the depression, this is heartbreaking so we got to move quickly on legislative solutions so let me just ask a question just to see my sister from oakland california, you're doing a phenomenal job with regard to students ofl color and teachers of color and being able to not only relate to these students but also teach a curriculum that empowers students to learn and make it more interesting in terms of reading. i did not have one black teacher until i got to college and it was awful because there was no connection to black history in theam curriculum or african history, no connection to who i was as a human being which created trauma not only for myself but most lack people who are my age. can you talk about the relationship between teaching one's history also in the teachers ofaving color being able to teach one's history, each and every one and second with regard to center of excellence, i have the privilege of working, i cannot believe thisi is the first time we put 1 million a grantee into the program, this committee did. can you tell us what we need to do given the importance as it relates to teacher education and young people? they really trained 50% of the nations black0 teachers. >> thank you, representative lee. i want to reiterate the importance of teachers of color as translators, teachers of color are able to connect what ncthey are experiencing to what they are learning in the classroom and that is important, we seek research importance of this essentially disconnecting students experience to new information they might learn that has an impact to achieve. you see that in the research those practices lead to better outcomes foro students which can go a long way toward addressing long-standing disparities and students opportunities and outcomes we've seen for decades. hbc you and colleges and universities and other minorities play an important role in developing teachers whot will go into classrooms and serve important roles and as you mentioned hbcus disproportionally prepare teachers of color, preparing more teachers of color than by proportion than other institutions so it's incredibly important they have resources they need to create high-quality programs like residencies in and other high-quality programs that offer rigorous coursework closely aligned, clinical practice in schools mentoring from excellent teachers and the experience in the schools where teacher will teach. teachers of color are more likely to teach, mostly students of color and it's important they are able to have experienced teaching so they feel confident and well prepared when they enter the classroom and more likely to stay for the long haul. >> before my time is up, to comment on the gun violence and how it's affecting teachers, young people entering into the teaching profession. >> thank you, congresswoman all morning long as you can imagine, my phone has been ringing off the, how canha we move through this? what can we do? teachers across the country are thinking about two things at the same time. number one, grandmothers in hebuffalo and kids in texas. number two,, they are thinking about grandmothers in buffalo and kids in texas and number three, they are thinking about s how do we create a welcoming environment -- that's why i lean into in this hearing the issue about community schools w and wrapping around services. schools are relational. if weon create the trust and connect in terms of relationship particularly post covidg your, it's going to be really helpful and that's what teachers are thinking about. not hardening schools, not, arming themselves how we create a self and welcoming environment. >> thank you veryha much for yor response. >> thank you for this hearing and thank you to the panelists. i'm going to follow up with ngsomething weingarten just sai. i'm going to express my heartbreak for the brutal murders yesterday in texas and across this country in the last several weeks. what we are seeing is not just the issue of guns, we see hate. i come from florida, we have a big teacher shortage, about 9000 teachers next year. we call ourselves a sunshine state, sunshine state except in the classroom. we had to policies the governor and the legislature enacted, i would like to get your opinion, there is a bill that bans any classroom discussion on gender, gender identity, sexual orientation and grades k through three, any parent might find inappropriate in grades k-12. it's much more than that. then there is the stop act, discussions on race, gender and oppression, a dialogue about race and truth in america's founding. they banned 40 math books and one of them, how you feel about masks ask understand why children are feeling, respecting their family life and i am wondering how these restrictions contribute to recruitment challenges and teachers out of the workforce. >> as you can imagine, of course i have, part of what happened over the course of generations, when there is uncertainty in communities, there is fertility for cultural work schools. he saw that in the scope trial, here's an years ago on the issue of evolution versus bible study and i say as someone who's married to a rabbi and very religious, you see this in terms of anxieties parents have and it's fertile ground because we have to make sure we help kids recover and thrive in the aftermath of covid, the aftermath of covid as opposed to all the other things, we all try to do the best we could, parents get this last npr poll shows 88% of parents thought teachers did the best they could. what we need to do is create an environment in schools where kids are free toch dream and thk and free to be themselves and that's why the don't say gay law is so negative because how does a teacher if the child says something in class under grade three, what is a teacher supposed to do? and hamstrings the relationship between kids and teachers. in terms of history, i am a history teacher, we have to teach honest history. there are people right now who can't figure out how to teach noabout what happened in buffalo because there are things they can and can't say. we have tor trust our kids and make sure parents no what we are doing to make sure kids feel the relationship agency, be empty so we can be a more perfect union. we have to trust people to be able to do this. >> thanks. you. we do know some of these other shootings these past several weeks were definitely racist in nature and we have seen that for several years, certain mental health issues but getting back to this florida law, it seems to me teachers are on pins and needles, i can't say anything to make somebody uncomfortable because they talk about racism, and idiotic law and causes more racism and hatred and more violence thissm country. thank you allnd again for being hereei today, i yield back. >> thank you, we are going to be able to have a second round and i know converse woman lee is there, congresswoman cole i believe is stillan on, please lt us know but with that, and this is a t question of ms. weingart, i am concerned and i know you are and there's a question about parents and teachers working together, i am concerned by false narrative out there, my opponents of public education, parent against each other make conditions more difficult and there are efforts that are counterproductive but don't reflect in my field but how parents actually feel about school. there was recent data finds 72% of parents say schools provide excellent or good quality education, 78 endorse the performance of the teacher. you represent many members of the community and first responders to issues like poverty, grief, children's mental health, how have you seen parents and teachers working together to support student learning? >> parents had, and i don't disagree, i agree hybrid learning was one of the worst things that happened and many of us and i can speak for myself, april 2020 wanting to see how we scget goals reopen and the task force to get goals reopen new york, and the t numbers of opposites about it and safety was one way we did it, very uncertain times. the question becomes, how can we create parent-teacher partnership thate is essential for kids to thrive? we do it in a lot of different ways and a lot of different places but schooling is one of the only places government gives to paris to p actually help ther families. we have to on a local level, part of the reason why chair, your bill full service community schools is so important because if we can get title i coordinators the money to wrap services around, 25000 of these community schools and just canada has thought about this in terms of the charter sector, we can do this we have an infrastructure by which parents can feel comfortable in a school, get answers in a school, have the child care representative was talking about, those are the things we need to do. we need to make sure parent-teacher relationship is one that's open and respected and what you see is schools at work have that. that's what we are trying to do across the country. >> i am excited to hear you talk about that because we put in $75 million in 2022, about $45 million inquiry. it is my intention to increase that effort. i volunteered against, i was unemployed in the community school. i watched the school closed 6:00 a.m. and close 9:00 p.m. parents, kids, interacting with each other all through the day. it was an environment in which parents were deeply involved with their youngsters and what was happening so i think we are on track to move back on that. the other piece off that, if you might talk about -- elected school boards in this country, parents represented in an elected school board so they have a role in what's happening in the classroom with their kids and they are on the board but the kids are in the same school. >> i am a big believer in local governments of schools and i've worked in many systems, i've worked with bloomberg who had mayoral control in new york city and just the two of us waived salaries, proud of his 43% for school teachers and it did usually reduce the number of certified teachers in new york city and doctor burke, usually amounts that following your but what happened is when you have local and create trust, every parent has issues they are struggling with but it is a tough time in america right now but it creates trust to have local boards elected by people in the community and trust is what we arey going for. we see opponents, sometimes like crystal and others, they are trying to create distrust to disconnect people from public schooling but public schooling is something republicans and democrats and independents really think is important in communitiesom and locally electd boards create that trust. >> thank you. congressman cole. >> thank you very much and thank our witnesses, this is a really good discussion. let m go to covid first and i want to do this without pointing fingers at anybody t because i think we are dealing with an impressive situation and peaceful people physically did the best they could wherever they were at. we've learned some things, my personal view, it was probably a big mistake to shut down schools. in my state, two different examples in oklahoma city did shut down, they shut down early and right at the end of the school year in 2020 but most of them reopened in the fall of 2020 and remained open under difficult circumstances and seemed to have better results in terms of their kids and what we explored in this community. i ask each of you, one or two lessons learned, i would be interested in what we should think about going forward should we confront something like this. and the overthinking right now but we know we are dealing with it on this committee for a long time and we know in your school system is going to be because the after effects, it's a long tail to it. let me start ms.s. weingarten wh you and anybody else on the panel, a couple of suggestions we ought to think about and lessons learned from covid, i would love to hear it. >> number one, thank you for the question. umnumber one, we need real consistency to the extent possible in what public health positioning is people are very confused physically at the us covid change and rules changed but to the extent we have real consistency from all quarters that would have created trust would have been very helpful because we believe safety and resources were the way to reopened schools and many other people on this committee i've had many conversations with how create safety and in person learning. that's number one. number two, we learn how to trust teachers a lot at the beginning of this pandemic, there was no real platform in a lot of places, there have been virtual learning before hand, former secretary of education pushed it really hard but we learned how to push teachers a lot, let's not stop trusting teachers now that we are back in person. they were ingenious, creative, bus drivers and d food service workers, let's trust them the same way we did in unprecedented depandemic. >> thank you. i think something we learned from this pandemic, there is a distinction between short-term and long-term solutions, shortages and issues we've been dealing with during the pandemic and teacher shortage far predates the pandemic and exacerbated by the pandemic so it's important to think about the long-term solutions to be enacted so we are not looking for short-term solutions when in crisis mode, it undercuts the ultimate outcomes we want to see. >> thank you very much. >> the number one lesson we should take away from covid, we should fund students and not systems. that was a big part of the reason parents didn't have educational continuity for their children, dollars go to school districts and not students themselves so when schools shut down they have few if any choices to make sure their children didll have access to in person instruction so it's an important lesson moving forward, every dollar we spend t should o directly to families to allow them for environments that work for them, reflect their values and are open for instruction long-term. >> i'm out of time but if you could respond, the chair was always generous.d. >> please. >> thank you, i appreciate that question. to echo what you said, are shortage in special education has been with us as long as i have been doing this, at least 40 years. in many situations, covid exacerbated what was already there so we were able to really see this and long-term solutions are important. i would also say there are many students with disabilities, significant health conditions for whom a return to school post accelerated threat so i think it is important to think about when we think about these public health situations. clearly it is preferable in person delivering something like speech therapy on assistance, challenging to do virtually. >> thank you madam chair for your indulgence on the. >> thank you. congresswoman lee. >> thank you very much. i helped found a community school and worked in a community school, black panther party community school. [laughter] ms. carter thomas, you know the history but the kids who went to this community sword for all the reasons we know, teachers cared about them, r teachers like the, there was a victim they could relate to, they excelled inan mh and science and music, unbelievable so i think community schools, they are public, i don't support vouchers for public schools really are a very interesting and excellent structure for low income kids and especially kids of color and having said that, when i was in the california legislature i worked a lot in congress on suspension and expulsion of black boys. a couple of years ago there was a study done that like 40% of african-americans babies were expelled, suspended from preschool. we've asked the department of e education to get a handle around it and also in california, kids were kicked out or expelled from public school because it was so vague there was no real guideline on what to do if there were issues with children and there were no resources or alternatives in terms of truancy and making sure teachers have a support system for whatever reason they needed to be expelled. i amxp wondering now if in california they can tighten that up so teachers have alternatives so they can teach and they don't have to have mental health counselors are public safety officers, iff anyone knows whats happening with these boys in preschool and if they are so expelled like they were a few rsyears ago. >> thank you for the question. there's quite a few different pieces and the first i'll say is one of the studies mentioned, they look at student outcomes including things like expulsion, disciplinary and show that teacher certification matters for that and there's other researchse showing that when students have more new teachers, they are more likely to be exclusionary disciplinary practices so both of those ideas suggests it matters, making sure teachers are prepared in these strategies will and they need to be able to teach without rules t as many students learning will, we see joseph they have more teachers of colorere and heartbreak and expulsions so it is clear that there are instructional practices that make a difference and having access to preparation matters for students experiencing the classroom. i couldn't speak to the priest flow rates of suspensions is troubling but i will say preparation can make a difference. >> do you or jane or and respond to that with regard to -- >> just click on that, we do know of disabilities and students of color are is proportionally suspended from schools and disproportionally experienced this rejection from school but it doesn't help them advance. we also know students of color are disproportionally included special education particularly black boys b and goes back to skill and expertise of the educators being able to work with them in a research based way knowledge. >> is a problem lee and are why data is collected to make sure and one of the ways of doing then is a restorative justice program plus ensuring as doctor west just said, that people are trained to meet the needs and a culturally competent way of all kids and why we get added in a lot of different ways. how do you have diverse teaching staff? how you deal with these issues and create more playtime in schools? how do you make sure teachers are prepared? >> thank you ms. burke. would you like to respond?ou >> i don't havew hard data to respond but we do know when you control behavior that some of the differences do shrink, i don't have hard numbers. >> okay, thank you. very important during the day after such a tragedy, it is overwhelming to be here with all of you. this reminds us how much work we have to do but we have to stop the gun violence on campuses. >> i was just say, a child study center has done a lot of work in this area, doctor jillian worked on this, put you in touch with them aboutbo what they have foud in terms d of research and dataw and what's happening to preschool youngsters and expulsion. we at one time did a briefing on that issue and it may be that we can work on something like that again. >> we got this under control because we've written a lot in direction, appropriations, language to address this, haven't got anyny reports back, this goes back ten years. [laughter] so that would be helpful and maybe from this time on we can get a grasp on what we need to do. >> let me ask congressman cole if you want to make any closing remarks and then i will wrap up. >> i will quickly. thank you again for the hearing and my probably from california, it is four hours earlier so any of the early -- >> i -- >> i still moreover at your stamina anyway. for anybody to tune in to our hearing for any length of time. it iss an important hearing andi want to thank each of the witnesses for taking the time, it hasne been a difficult day ad we've all acknowledged that but my friend from california, i appreciate the fact that you do give optimism where we are headed and what our potential is. without shortchanging the problems we do have. i sometimes think we tried to do too much of the federal level and i'm not talking in terms of money, i thought we have too many problems and not enough money, we be better off to focus, narrow down on a number of programs and then the same dollars we doll today that's probably the subject of another hearing. i also think we have a larger cultural problem, i mentioned in my i opening remarks probably should have pursued that in question is, i do think the profession has lost a lot of respect and i regret that. my son is a public school teacher, my career was to be an educator not to be a politician, one of the most noble professions there is and the fact that we have people leaving out of discouragement, part of it is greener pastures and opportunities, i think part of it is exhaustion and we need to rethink some of the burdens we put on teachers, ms. weingarten talked about the paperwork which we excel at the federal level, we never give you money for free, we always send a list and requirements and reports and what have you, is something we ought to think about ourselves. there's a level of trust, we trust people at the local level to make good decisions and i'm not talking about the normal safeguards in terms of making sure money is not misappropriated but at the end of the day i like ms. burke's idea, money following students and empowering students and families to make their choices, there's a lot of merit in that and it puts the decision-making dollars closer together and it works out better i think in the long run but regardless, i appreciate everybody's participation, it's a lively discussion. i think madam chair suggesting that i thank you for following up so quickly and giving us this opportunity today. with that, i look forward too continuing to work with my friend, the chair on these issues and i go back. >> thank you very, very much. i want too say i thank you, i know he is in on in the course of the last hearing he suggested this and honestly as i said earlier, this is the first hearing we've had on shortage of teachers since the pandemic but two things, this has been an elevated conversation and ire appreciate the richness of it and the discussion. the ranking member said always revered in society were teachers. most families and other generations wanted you to pursue teaching, that was the thing to do especially for women, especially for women, that was very true. i think ms. weingarten comments about how would you advise your child or grandchild to go into the teaching profession? how would you want to give them a sense of the nobility of the profession? and we have lost -- we have lost a lot of that recently. what i think is what we focus here on today is a teacher shortage is a national crisis, it existed before the pandemic and was exacerbated by the pandemic. retaining teachers is a crisis and what we need to try to do so how do we address that? ... improve teacher pay. special education, how do we train these special teachers? teachers of color. that's a big issue today. expand access to collective bargaining. expand community schools. i'm so proud we are having a resurgence of the importance of community schools. we did that a number of years ago and then they just shut down. and they were vital in and dynamic in creating that atmosphere for students, children, families, academics , teachers coming together. mental health support, investing in critical preparation programs. i mention all those because i want to say this is encouraging that we are looking at the federal level recently and this committee has made some investments. that is in teacher quality partnerships which we increased about $16 million. the hawkins program my colleague congressman lee is $8 million. for the first time we've moved in this direction with the hawkins centers of excellence. personal preparation, i mentioned community schools $75 million. school-based mental health which we are investing in. a number of these suggestions you all made , under these categories. and so we have an opportunity to make the investment at this time in areas that have really been either flat funded or underfunded for years. understanding the breadth of the problem that we face today. and the fact is we need to prioritize these investments and understand their values in terms of these systems that educate our young people. provide them with the opportunities for their future. gives them a path to success and there is no no more greater achievement. everyone here their parents told them to get an education . you get an education you can succeed and that's what you're all in the business to do and we have money. one of the biggest increases has been for hbcu's and ms eyes. i only say that because i feel good that we are on track. i want us to be able to do more and when i think about what happened yesterday and how we go forward because we have to go forward that we have to reassure. i mean, we're not talking here about gun violence but we need to address that in the congress. it's a very serious question. but we need to assure teachers that they are safe. and their families know they are safe and that sandy hook tragedy, the young woman named victoria. she protected her students was shot and killed. and maybe the same circumstances for the young woman yesterday who had 15, 17 years of teaching. so we have to assure teachers and their families that yes, they are safe and we respect them as respect what they do and i those who want to just foment dissension amongst our teachers and for our students . what can we offer? i never went to school, iwent every day . never for a moment rydid either my parents or i felt i wasn't going to returnhome that day . and today, it's lives with each one of our kids. and it lives with their parents. this is a moral responsibility that we have to address this issue. to the extent that we can provide not only the solace, don't not only the thoughts, not only the prayers for addressing thesituation and i'll speak for myself . we cannot and assault weapons in this country which is something i cannot abide but we need to provide also the kind of mental health. the kinds of efforts that can reassure people that are schools are a safe environment. for their youngster. and for the people who teach our youngsters. teachers have the most time with our children. spend the most time with our children and we cannot ever forgetthat . we cannot ever understand the commitment they make. we're willing to addressthese issues . in terms of the various shortages and gaps that we have. twe can try harder and with hope we can succeed. thank you so much for giving your lives to this profession and making sure that our kids are well educated and can realize their dreams and aspirations. thank you so much today. >> we are funded by these television companies and more including charter communications . >> broadband is force for empowerment. that's why charter has invested billions upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities baby and small. charter isconnecting us . >> charter supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers giving you a front row seatto democracy . >> next a hearing looking at inequities in the financial system for people with disabilities. a panel of disability rights advocates discusses topics including access to housing, employment opportunities and job training. this was held by a cfinancial services subcommittee who talked about the growing number of people newly disabled due to long covid. >> this hearing is entitled diversity in disability, exploring and equity for persons with disabilities including those newly disabled due to long-term covid. i now recognize myself for 4 minutes to give an opening statement. this subcommittee has been focused on examining diversity in all its forms and the intersection with

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