Public Comments for: HB145 - Virginia Teacher Residency Training Corps; established.
Vote no on HB145. With an ongoing teacher shortage crisis, requiring each scholarship recipient to intern/extern at low-income, and often less safe schools, will chase candidates away. Virginia will make more headway to maybe NOT continue to be 50th in the USA, if scholarship grant recipients can begin practicing their teaching skills at any school. THEN incentivize with annual bonuses and differential pay for those who work in positions of higher demands, like Title 1 schools and providers of Special Education services.
The Virginia Assocation of School Superintendents supports this bill.
On behalf of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, I write in support of House Bill 145 establishing the Virginia Teacher Residency Training Corps. Recruiting and retaining a robust and diverse teacher workforce to address the critical teacher shortage in Virginia is a priority for the Virginia Chamber. Research has shown how successful these hands-on programs can be with teacher recruitment and retention when you couple theory and practice with support from experienced mentors. We ask that you support HB145.
Two years ago, I attempted to convince Del. Maldonado to do something similar to this, so it is high time it has come. As a former teacher of 30 years, I know it is hard to find good teachers. They replaced me with one who shows movies all day. There is simply no hidden lair where teachers are. You must create them by attracting good quality people, of excellent character, AND PAY THEM WELL for their work. Starting at $38,000 when they can earn at least $70,000 someplace else is not going to attract people like a younger me who love the work, love the kids. One step better than this outreach to younger folks -- create a program to bring in the best from everywhere and put our VA surplus toward it.
We have failed to produce quality teachers and our educational outcomes demonstrate this. Rather than this proposed residential training, please require teachers to hold a master's degree in a core subject such as English, Math, History, Science and THEN and only then offer pay that will attract and retain them.