A new online certification tool from the Arizona Department of Education is intended to make it easier to become a teacher in Arizona. This comes as more than a quarter of teaching positions remain unfilled across the state.
The system aims to simplify the process by allowing users to track their progress and get real-time updates with their application.
Tom Horne, state superintendent of public instruction, said he hopes that the tool will help address ongoing teacher shortages by providing a more accessible and efficient platform for prospective educators.
“We have a real emergency because we’re losing more teachers than are coming into the classroom. If we don’t do something to turn that around, we could end up with zero teachers, which you can imagine how the public would react to that," Horne said.
Horne said this is part of his larger initiative to cut red tape for teachers and schools.
Over 52% of teacher vacancies in Arizona are filled by teachers who do not meet the state’s certification requirements, according to a September report from the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association (ASPAA).
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