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Harrisburg – Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium (PEDC) Executive Directors Donna-Marie Cole and Karen Parker Thompson today released the following statement in response to the newly enacted Pennsylvania state budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year:
“We are grateful to Governor Shapiro and state legislative leaders for coming together to agree on a spending plan that invests in Pennsylvania students and educators and supports a more diverse educator workforce. The $30 million investment in student teacher stipends – a $10 million increase over last year’s amount – is a significant step in the right direction to attract more teachers, particularly teachers of color, to the profession.
“However, this budget doesn’t go far enough to fully address the educator workforce crisis the commonwealth is facing. Pennsylvania has seen a 66 percent drop in education majors and only 6,600 new teachers being certified annually – despite having between 9,000 and 10,000 open teaching positions. Over the last 6 years, for one out of every 10 new teachers, the first year they taught was the last year they taught. To adequately reverse this troubling trend, our state government must fully fund teacher stipends and invest in programs to keep Pennsylvania teachers in Pennsylvania schools.
“PEDC has been calling on lawmakers to allocate $55 million to fully fund Pennsylvania’s Student Teacher Stipend Program – which is what research demonstrates is needed to meet the current demand – and to invest in Talent Recruitment Accounts that support district and educator prep initiatives to recruit and retain teachers. Dual enrollment, apprenticeship, residency, and other Grow Your Own programs help aspiring educators earn degrees and rebuild the teacher pipeline.
“We are proud of the progress this budget demonstrates toward addressing the commonwealth’s severe teacher shortage and lack of diversity in our educator workforce. We still have work to do to ensure our students have the support they need to reach their full potential. PEDC stands ready to continue to work with our lawmakers, elected leaders and partners to advance policies – like full funding of student teacher stipends – that will lead to a more high-quality, diverse educator workforce in Pennsylvania.”
Background:
Ten years ago, Pennsylvania prepared 19,000 new teachers ready to enter the workforce each year. Today, that number has declined to fewer than 7,000 with schools facing major staffing crises. To make matters worse, less than 7 percent of the educators we do have are people of color despite the fact that nearly 40 percent of students are people of color. And more than half of our teacher vacancies are in districts where at least 80 percent of students are people of color.
This is especially important because research shows that students of color are more likely to graduate from high school, be prepared to do well in college, and get ready for the workforce when they have the opportunity to learn from someone who looks like them and has shared life experiences. This represents one of the most significant educational disparities in the country. Furthermore, Pennsylvania is losing thousands of potential teachers each year along the educator pipeline.
The General Assembly and Governor Shapiro established the Student Teacher Stipend program in 2023 to support Pennsylvanians training to become certified and committed educators in the Commonwealth. The program was piloted with $10 million; demand has proven to be extremely high.
About PEDC:
The Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium (PEDC) is a grassroots organization of early childhood, PK-12, higher education, non-profit, community, and government leaders striving to increase the number of teachers of color, specifically those who identify as Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, in Pennsylvania. There are over 650 individuals, many of whom represent nearly 330 organizations across the Commonwealth, who are committed to PEDC's vision of a future in which each learner in Pennsylvania experiences racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse and culturally relevant and sustaining educators leading their classrooms and educational institutions. For more information on PEDC, please visit www.paeddiversity.org or follow on social media at:
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