Lawmakers seek answers on teacher openings

Legislative panel wants details on what positions remain vacant statewide and how to better recruit, keep educators

Now that New Mexico lawmakers have pumped funding into teacher pay raises and incentives for college students in education programs, policy analysts are calling for a more accurate picture of what kinds of teachers are missing from public school classrooms.

“It doesn’t seem to be so much of a supply problem as a matching problem,” Charles Sallee, deputy director of the Legislative Finance Committee, told lawmakers Wednesday.

Some teachers have certifications in understaffed fields such as special education and bilingual education but might not be taking jobs in those areas, Sallee added.

An annual report on public school teacher vacancies by New Mexico State University’s Southwest Outreach Academic Research Center cited more than 1,000 unfilled jobs at the start of 2021-22, particularly in areas like bilingual and special education. A statewide shortage of teachers and substitutes prompted Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to greenlight a program earlier this year that fasttracked substitute teaching licenses for state employees, New Mexico National Guard members and others to help alleviate what was described as a classroom crisis, and the Legislature approved measures to make the profession more attractive to both experienced teachers and those in training.

But a new joint report from the Legislative Finance Committee and the Legislative Education Study Committee, presented at a Wednesday hearing in Alamogordo, raises questions about where those vacancies might be, particularly as public school enrollment declines statewide.

The report, which found the state’s pool of teachers is becoming filled with those who are less experienced and don’t remain in the field long, suggests lawmakers should keep their eyes on teacher education and retention to address high turnover rates and that policy analysts should collect more specific data on staffing shortages.

“We need, as a state, a better understanding of our teacher supply and demand,” Legislative Education Study Committee Director Gwen Perea Warniment said.

The report also calls for more support systems for educators and school leaders and strategies to recruit teachers to hard-tostaff positions to avoid costly turnover. It also suggests officials consider conducting a statewide exit survey to better understand why teachers leave.

The New Mexico Public Education Department does not track teacher or principal turnover, but 2012 and 2013 data from the Learning Policy Institute indicates the state had the second-highest rate of turnover in the nation at the time — 24 percent, according to a report.

However, the report says there were more teachers in 2021 than there were in 2017 and teacher licenses issued in “high-priority” areas have risen, even while enrollment in local teacher educator programs has declined by 75 percent in recent years.

Sallee and Warniment also noted enrollment in public K-12 schools is declining. It fell 8 percent in the decade since fiscal year 2013.

Albuquerque Public Schools has started to cut hundreds of funded but vacant educator positions, the report says. It also notes student-to-teacher ratios are generally falling across the state.

“Given a statewide student-toteacher ratio (STR) well below statute, the exponential increase in vacancies reported by [the Southwest Outreach Academic Research Center] might not clearly reflect each district’s unique needs for teachers in the short-term or long-term,” the report states.

Sallee and Warniment urged lawmakers to turn their attention to teacher retention efforts, not just recruitment.

One strategy to slowing the revolving door may be to consider boosting resources for school social workers, who provide mental health supports to students and alleviate the emotional burden on teachers, Warniment said. The state’s student-to-social worker ratio is at 127 to 1, according to the report, which associates more school support staff with better teacher retention.

Sen. Gay Kernan, R-Hobbs, wondered whether school social workers saw the same benefits from recent salary increases as other school staff.

“We need social workers right now, and some are being paid higher salaries than others,” she said.

The new legislative report comes months after lawmakers poured funding into teacher recruitment efforts, including through salary hikes and paid classroom residencies for student teachers.

In an another effort to increase the teaching workforce, the Public Education Department decided to eliminate subject skills tests, known as Praxis exams, as a requirement for people earning teaching certifications by 2024. Instead, prospective teachers will be able to submit portfolios demonstrating their competency.

Education officials said the move is meant to boost workforce diversity, but lawmakers across the aisle voiced concerns that scrapping Praxis requirements in subject areas like math would leave prospective teachers unprepared.

“It’s hard for me not to read into that, that we’re just trying to lower the standards so that we can attract more educators,” said Rep. T. Ryan Lane, R-Aztec.

The committee’s vice chairman, Rep. G. Andrés Romero, D-Albuquerque, and its chairman, Sen. Bill Soules, D-Las Cruces, also voiced concerns about ending the test requirements.

“I do have concerns about scrapping the entirety of these exams moving forward,” said Romero, a social studies teacher in Albuquerque.

“How much of it is being able to teach, and how much of it is understanding your content knowledge?”