 Hello, everyone, and welcome to our webinar with the Learning Policy Institute titled Strengthening Pathways into the Teaching Profession in Texas Challenges and Opportunities. My name is Dr. Audrey Bocklage, and I have the privilege of serving as the Vice President of the Learning and Impact Team at the Charles Butt Foundation. Most recently, our team released the 2024 Charles Butt Foundation Texas teacher poll titled Listening to the Educator Experience. We also produce an annual Texas education poll that shares the experiences and perspectives of Texans and education. I'm excited to share that next year will be our fifth consecutive year producing these polls and we look forward to continuing to serve the field in this way. But that's enough about us. Today, I'm honored to serve as the moderator for this panel today and look forward to learning alongside y'all with such a prestigious group of experts. I'm going to introduce our panelists first by name and title and then give them some time to introduce themselves. First, Jennifer Bland, Senior Researcher at the Learning Policy Institute. Also Emily Garcia, Associate Commissioner with the Texas Education Agency, and Joe Lisa Hoover, teacher specialist with Raise Your Hand Texas. I'll hand it over to Jennifer first. Thanks, Audrey. So, as Audrey said, I'm a senior researcher at the Learning Policy Institute. We are a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to producing high quality education research and informing associated policy development. I have a pretty long history of research on the teacher development system and the teacher pipeline and the bulk of my work is on the Texas teacher workforce at the moment. And I will pass it to Emily. Hi, everybody. It's so great to be here with you today. Yes, I just blessed to serve at TEA as the Associate Commissioner for Ed Prep Certification and Enforcement. And I'm really grateful for the opportunity to spend some time talking about my favorite subject that my friends and family get tired of hearing about. But I don't think you will, which is just making sure we are creating and sustaining a pipeline of talent that is fit and qualified for the great students of our state. I have a long background in education starting out as a teacher, school administrator and the leader of an educator preparation program before coming to the agency where I get to see maybe slow, small incremental change, but it affects a really large group of Ed programs and the teachers and students that those programs serve. So grateful to be here today. I will pass it to Joe Lisa. Hi, everyone. I'm Joe Lisa Hoover. I'm the teacher specialist at Raise Your Hand, Texas. We're a policy and advocacy organization focused on public schools. And I come to you from the classroom for 26 years. I was a teacher in Bryan ISD and Leander ISD. In my current role I'm focused on teacher workforce issues. And I really am excited about the work I get to do in elevating teachers voices at the Capitol. Obviously I have worked as a fellow at the US Department of Education, and as a teach plus fellow and I'm very excited about this conversation today so important. All right, thanks y'all. Thank you for your housekeeping notes or just run of show. I am going to share that we are going to hold questions until the end but as questions come up for you please send any questions via the chat option in zoom and we'll answer as many as we can at the conclusion of the panel discussion. So that being said, Jennifer is going to share about 20 minutes overview of the report with us and then we're going to transition to our panel and open it up to Q&A. So, I will now hand the reins over to Jennifer. Thanks so much Audrey. And thanks again to all of you for spending some time with this group today I think it'll be a really robust conversation. So, I, along with my colleagues Wesley way and Steve voice to cave it and Linda darling Hammond recently produced a report synthesizing some of the teacher workforce in Texas that folks here steeped in among them shortages, the rise of alternative pathways into the profession, and the composition of the incoming teacher workforce. My purpose in kicking off the conversation today is to discuss the reports findings, along with some quick data updates when numbers have been updated since the report was published. And to seed what I think will be a really interesting follow up conversation among the group of folks that the Charles but foundation is assembled. And I'm especially eager to hear when it comes to audience questions, how what we found aligns with what you're directly experiencing. Now, as folks know a lot of strong efforts are already underway in the state to address leaks in the teacher pipeline. I'm not going to present on those here but I do want to acknowledge them because they are a big part of the story in Texas. We definitely take them up in the report and I absolutely imagine that they will come up in the subsequent conversation. So with that let's dive in. First of all, I want to quickly touch on some of the research around school staffing nationally that underscores why these issues are so important. The methods, as well as their levels of preparation, certification and levels of experience affect students academic achievement and student opportunities to learn, as well as student well being research suggests that teacher quality has the largest effect size of any in school factor on student achievement, and is also associated with longer term student outcomes like high school graduation college enrollment and outcomes in the labor market. So overall stability in the teacher workforce also matters for student achievement. Teacher attrition which is teachers leaving the profession and teacher turnover, that is teachers moving between schools or districts have been shown to directly harm student achievement. Attrition and turnover also negatively influence other aspects of education such as school community cohesiveness that themselves impact student learning. Preparation also matters for teacher retention. Nationally research has found that persistence in the teaching profession beyond the first few years depends in substantial part on whether a teacher received complete preparation, including pre service student teaching and coursework on how to teach effectively. To enter teacher of record positions without various aspects of a comprehensive prep program are as much as two to three times more likely to leave the profession within the first year of teaching than those who are fully prepared based on national studies. Finally, and importantly, students of color and students from low income families are disproportionately taught by underprepared and inexperienced teachers, which obviously raises major equity concerns. So the upshot here is that a stable high quality teacher workforce is an ongoing policy imperative in Texas and elsewhere. Focusing specifically on Texas, there's been a recent series of interrelated trends affecting the teacher workforce. On the demand side, we have the growing need for additional teachers exacerbated by high teacher attrition. On the supply side, we have increased reliance on alternative certification, and particularly on all cert from for profit pathways that in some some circumstances cut corners when it comes to the type of preparation we know is best for teacher candidates. The result is a shrinking pool of fully credentialed new teachers offset by larger proportions of interns and uncertified teachers to dig into these issues more thoroughly. The growing need for additional teachers in Texas is in part a function of population increases. Student enrollment has increased about 8.7% over the last 10 years, which is a direct and interesting contrast to enrollment declines in some other states. And the growing need for additional teachers is in part a function of decreases in class size. COVID era funding has also added some new positions that have needed to be filled. And the collective result here is that the state teacher workforce is now at its largest size ever over 380,000 teachers in 2022-23. Among other implications, this means that small shifts in percentage points for topics like attrition, which we'll turn to next, have outsized real world implications because they ultimately represent thousands of teachers. Teacher shortages are very closely related to teacher attrition. And in Texas, the state has outpaced national teacher attrition averages by about 25% over the past decade. And as is the case nationally, attrition has been climbing recently in Texas. In 2021 alone, more than one in nine Texas teachers left the state's teacher workforce rather than return for the 21-22 school year. And in 2022, aligning with national spikes in COVID era teacher resignations, statewide teacher attrition rose to a historic high of 13.4% in that one year, meaning that more than one in 7.5 teachers left the classroom rather than return for 2022-23. What this graph here does is it arrays new hires versus attrition from the previous year over the last 15 years or so. And it shows the extent to which teacher demand is driven by prior year attrition. Now, obviously that's not a perfect comparison that we can make. Some vacancies are ones districts decide not to backfill, for example, and there are certain new positions that are created each year. But there have been healthy gaps for most of the last 10 years between new hires and attrition from the previous year. With somewhere between 84 and 95% of vacancies explainable by prior year attrition. And you can see that in the amount of daylight essentially between the blue dots representing attrition and the orange dots representing new hires for the corresponding year. In 2021-22, however, 99.7% of statewide hires corresponded to gaps created by attrition. In 2022-23, it cooled off a little bit, but 97.6% of statewide hires corresponded to gaps created by attrition. And this year is one indicator of a serious teacher shortage. So this begs the question, why are teachers leaving? Current stressors on the system include but are not limited to low pay and poor benefits, polarizing statewide politics, and challenging working conditions exacerbated by conditions created by the pandemic. In a recent Charles Butt Foundation poll, over half of Texas teachers reported that they worked at least one additional job, with most doing so during the academic year and doing so out of financial necessity. This combination of factors has led teachers to seriously consider exiting the state workforce. 77% of Texas teachers reported in 2022 and 75% reported in 2023 that they were thinking of leaving the profession. This is substantially more than the 55% of teachers nationwide indicating this on a different survey. And of the Texas teachers thinking about leaving in 2022, over 90% had taken at least one of the concrete steps that you see here to do so, whether searching online for other jobs, updating their resumes, networking, actually interviewing, enrolling in coursework. So these are not just sort of idle thoughts. They're being backed up by concrete actions that teachers are taking. Meanwhile, on the supply side, we have this increased reliance on alternative certification, particularly driven by for profit ulcer pathways. Teacher candidates in Texas have a pretty wide variety of programs to choose from. 122 in 20 as of 2023. And I want to be very clear here that both traditional and alternative programs can very widely in quality and rigor. Currently, though, nearly 70% of all teacher preparation program enrollment in Texas comes from for profit. Non institution of higher education teacher preparation programs that typically allow candidates to bypass student teaching to get into paid teacher of record positions sooner. Teacher prep can be expensive and absent loan forgiveness or grant programs to offset costs. It's absolutely understandable why teacher candidates are making these choices. But the evidence suggests that the less comprehensive preparation candidates receive in the form of student teaching integrated with several essential kinds of coursework, the more likely they are to struggle in the classroom and the less likely they are to stay in teaching. If we look at federal title to data over the last roughly, well, 12 years or so. These data reveal that the number of candidates completing non IHE alternative preparation has essentially remained flat over the past six years for which full data are available those are these these shaded lines to the right of the the darker enrollment lines. And while enrollment in these programs, the darker lines to the left have massively massively increased increased in fact by more than 500% over the same period before dipping around 20% heading into the first full pandemic affected school year in 2021. And while exact completion percentages aren't currently calculate are not currently calculable, based on the available data, in part because teacher candidates take different lengths of time to complete differently designed programs. And in part because program level definitions of what constitutes active enrollment can vary pretty widely. And while comparing the decreasing ratios of enrollees to completers over the last five years by program type reveals what appears to be a substantial leak in the pipeline, affecting participants in non IHE alternative preparation programs. So what does this mean for the labor force, a shrinking pool of fully credentialed new teachers combined with increasing reliance on interns and more recently on uncertified teachers to fill vacancies. When the analysis is restricted to first time teachers so excluding reentering teachers state data from 2021 22 show that 57% of first time teachers in Texas held either an intern certificate, or an emergency permit, or no certificate at all. This represents double the 28% of first time teachers trained in Texas who had earned a standard certificate after completing a clinical experience. And the numbers for 2022 23 or even more stark state data show that in this case, 64% of first time teachers in 2223 held either an intern certificate, emergency permit, or no certificate at all. More than triple the 21% of first time teachers trained in Texas who held a standard certificate after completing a clinical experience. Furthermore, the total proportion of new teachers of sorry new hires, teaching on substandard intern certificates or emergency permits or no certification at all so those are the orange fractions of the bars here has hovered over above half of Texas new hires for much of the past 15 years. The share of uncertified teachers in the entering workforce has increased substantially over the past few years, having nearly doubled in each of the past two years alone those are the darkest orange bars at the bottom. With uncertified teachers largely appearing to displace interns in the state's teacher workforce. Now it's worth noting here that a lot of recent research and quite a few recent policy discussions in Texas have focused on teachers coming out of alternative pathways, but have not as of yet paid much attention to this group of uncertified teachers entering the profession. Now, the variety of pathways into the teaching profession in Texas have been linked to variations and new teacher persistence in the profession. The college traditionally prepared teachers who complete all of their preparation and meet state standards before entry in the classroom as a teacher of record, stay in the profession longer. There are a number of recent statewide studies that we cite in our report using different methodologies that show this differing, sorry that show this varying by different proportions, but the trend holds across these studies. This takes us back to the growing need for additional teachers. And this is why it's so important to focus on retaining effective teachers to sustainably address teacher shortages. For every teacher who stays in the classroom, there's one less vacancy to fill, thus alleviating pressure to recruit another new teacher, retain enough teachers, and the demand on overall recruitment systems becomes much much more manageable. The pathways into the teaching profession in Texas has also been linked to differences in teacher effectiveness as measured by star test gains of the students of these teachers. According to a 2022 report out of UT Austin, star data show that students with alternatively non IHE prepared teachers make smaller learning gains by a matter of months per year, relative to students with teachers from university based prep programs. They are up in every tested grade and subject, and they accumulate over time. Similar differences are also revealed when comparing students of nonprofit prepared teachers to students of for profit prepared teachers in the same study with students of nonprofit prepared teachers, having learning gains of substantial weeks to months. Now this graphic here the report goes into this in detail if you're interested it's on page 32. I'm not going to go into all of this in detail but the upshot here is when all of these data that I just discussed are arrayed together. There are substantial leaks in the teacher pipeline in Texas at numerous stages. From the point at which candidates first consider becoming teachers but maybe deterred into and through the teacher preparation and certification process, differentially by root and via attrition for various reasons, once teachers do enter the classroom. As I referenced earlier there's already a great deal of productive work in Texas going on to address these types of leaks on the teacher pipeline, but there is still work that remains to be done. So I'm going to give a brief overview of the policy recommendations we presented in the report, and then pass it over to our exciting group of panelists. So the policy recommendations that we array here are represented as puzzle pieces very deliberately to underscore that they're interconnected and mutually reinforcing pieces of an effective sustainable teacher development pipeline. That begins prior to when a teacher enters their prep program and extends into their career in the classroom. The idea here looking at these as a comprehensive set is that though teacher shortages may be endemic in Texas they're not inevitable. And research has identified a host of related interventions that can help stabilize the workforce and minimize teacher shortages by addressing the root causes of attrition. The first set of policy recommendations that we make does this from the teacher prep side the pre service side. It addresses aspects of teacher prep and the pre service experience including funding for teacher candidates through loan forgiveness and scholarships, as well as the format of the clinical experience a teacher candidate receives so implementing expanding things like residencies and apprenticeships and successful grow your own programs. Our second set of recommendations addresses aspects of a teacher's in service experience addressing new teacher induction and mentoring, as well as salaries and working conditions. And we also recommend subsidies for principal learning opportunities that can help them support and retain teachers. And then the last couple of recommendations we make in the report address state system level issues that can bolster the teacher pipeline. Specifically here we recommend implementing common standards for program approval and licensure. And continuing to improve state education and workforce data to enable that much better understanding of teacher shortages and associated more targeted interventions in the future. So that is a very quick overview of what is a pretty comprehensive report. I absolutely recommend that you take a look at the report text if you want more thorough detail on these issues. And I'm very happy to have you contact me if you have subsequent questions after this webinar today concludes. Thank you Jennifer that was a lot of information and now we'll move to our panelists. To help us process digest and think about all of this data even deeper into the context deeper in the context of the state of Texas so our first question for our panelists is, while the challenges are clear from this report. As the title states there are opportunities. So would you all mind sharing the positive things and the bright spots happening within the Texas teacher workforce that you see from your position so I'll open it up to Joe Lisa and Emily and Jennifer if you want to keep jumping in and chatting. I would love to jump in here because I do think there are bright spots and they so often don't get the light shown on them that they should. One of those I would say that I think directly correlates to all the content that you just shared, but is really kind of flipping at the coin and looking at it another way is that in terms of access to high quality preparation and options that aspiring teachers pursue high quality preparations. We are seeing an explosion of opportunity. So just in the last year just from 2221 22 to 2223, we went from having 15 registered residency preparation paths supported by the agency to 28. We're looking at increasing that number to about 40 here real shortly and when we do so there will be residency pathways into the classroom in every region of our state that growth in two years is is pivotal and we can see that there's an appetite for that type of preparation both from candidates who want to invest in their preparation to ensure their success when they are in the classroom and from districts who are working really hard to transform the way they look at staffing and prioritizing their budgets to provide paid residency opportunities for candidates. In the last year we saw a 47% increase in the number of candidates choosing a full year paid residency as their path to the class. So while we do see alarming numbers of candidates going through quick defensive paths to the classroom that are largely online asynchronous kind of modular based which we we don't equate to the highest quality of preparation. Those are still really big numbers, but we are chipping away at them and not chipping away at them with mildly better options but with dramatically remarkably different paths to the classroom that ensure teachers are qualified. They know what they're getting into and they're ready to stay in a career in the classroom. I would say that's the brightest spot is more opportunity to go through high quality pathways and more candidates choosing those. I'd be happy to jump in first of all happy World Teachers Day to our teachers. I think a bright spot has to be our teachers and if I can't ever miss an opportunity to talk about the roles that our teachers play during the pandemic, and keeping our communities together and keeping them fed and reinventing school overnight. And so I think a bright spot has to be our teachers themselves, some of the resilience we're seeing and then some of the advocacy we're seeing from teachers. I think it's a credit to teachers voices that so many people are talking about this issue is that teachers are using their voices to advocate what would keep them in the classroom and to improve the learning conditions for their students. Thanks Jennifer is there anything you would like to add. I wanted to really underscore what Emily said about Residencies. I will lay my full cards out on the table which is that the Learning Policy Institute is doing a couple of follow up studies to the one I just presented on. One of them focuses in particular on the T-Class the Texas COVID Learning Acceleration Supports Residency Initiative. And so my brain is is focused there. You know, and so I'm sort of primed to think that way but it just seems like that's a really exciting opportunity that is, as Emily mentioned proliferating across Texas. You know, not just in a few kind of let's let's have a small example of what we can what we can build and then try to, you know, increase it but but really in a substantial way and I think that that's really exciting. Thank you. Our next question and we're we're starting to get there with this first bright spot, but when each of you thinks about a high quality teacher preparation program, what comes to mind. I went first last time so I'm trying to exercise some wait time. I'll go ahead and jump in. I have answers to this too. I think that I really think I what comes to mind for me is a lot of the pieces of the puzzle that Jennifer shared those pieces are really, really powerful. They, I see them as little boats all kind of rowing in the same direction of teacher quality. And when you put them all together and you layer them into one puzzle, the synergy and power of executing on those recommendations together is just kind of mind blowing. I wanted to reduce it down to the it's most it's finest grain size and not really a policy recommendation, but more of a practice. I think of two things when I think of really high quality teacher prep and I do not think I will say I do not think you can have high quality teacher prep without these two things. Coursework and coaching has to be integrated into pre service practice where there is an a woven net that is so tight between what I'm learning and coursework when I'm practicing in my clinical placement and what my field supervisor or coach or mentor or appraiser are coming in and on those three things have to be connected. And then secondly I would say frequent opportunities for low risk coaching and feedback practice fail fail often fail quickly fail forward, rinse and repeat do it again and doing that in a situation where you're not the teacher of record for my daughter who's struggling in geometry this year right. So I think those are the two things really integrated coursework coaching and practice and low risk environments where they can do that. So Emily I just you've said that so beautifully but so let me add to what Emily said, which I think teacher camp prep can't stop that first year of teaching. We have to think through about our intentionality and having high quality mentorship programs, so that we are supporting our first year teachers, not that anyone could be ready day one, but that we're all the best prepared we can and the best supported we can be through those first few years of teaching until we feel confident to do this on our own. And I don't have anything new or profound to add. But I think this this idea of tight alignment, not just that you have high quality coursework, and that you have a high quality low stakes non teacher of record clinical experience, but that the two are really tightly interwoven, and teachers can apply teacher candidates can apply what they're learning in their coursework quickly in their clinical experience and really embed that in their understanding. I think it's absolutely key. And then I also just want to speak to the idea of the professionalization of teaching and the importance of ad prep programs, you know doing what they can to, to lift up teaching as a profession and and acknowledge and recognize the, the seriousness and the importance and the depth of what teacher candidates are getting into. Thank you. Emily, this question is pointed to you so you get to go first without wait time. You're ready, and you've already kind of dug into this but I wonder if the answers to the previous question can, you can provide us with some more insight so what work is CEA currently doing to affect teacher preparation in Texas. So first question, and let me go first again. We're doing a lot. We are, you know, we are maybe cool calm little ducks on the surface but we are paddling as fast as we can. And we're doing some really neat stuff in terms of, you know, we have our foundational rules are legislative mandates and requirements that serve as kind of a baseline of what do you have to do to keep your lights on as an ad prep program. We've been in place for a really long time and programs work hard to achieve those kind of basic pieces. But what we've spent about a year and a half almost two years now focusing on is what's the opposite of that what's like the aspirational gold bar for what preparation looks like in Texas. Looks like no matter where you are Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Nacodotus you are going to get these same things. This is what good quality looks like for teachers and the kids that they learn. We've spent almost two years working on an effective preparation framework that does lay out the key criteria and essential actions that are included in high quality preparation. What we're doing now that we've got this kind of 1.0 of an effective preparation framework launch is looking at how do we evaluate ad prep programs every five years to see their compliance not just with that base level, but with their progress towards these aspirational goals. Not for it, not for a stick this data is is a as a flashlight, not a stick. We are looking to illuminate the areas where certain programs are doing well and could serve as models for other programs across the state that may be struggling in an area. But also to connect a program who's struggling, maybe they're struggling with high quality field based experiences, or maybe they're struggling with connecting the mentor in the field supervisor. How can we provide technical assistance in a supportive way to help EPPs in their journey of continuous improvement. That's not that's fairly new work for the agency to be engaging in, but when we do it at the state level, it can be pretty transformative. I think the other thing we've talked about residency is quite a bit I could I could beat that drum for a long time. So I'll skip that but talk a little bit more about what we're doing in the area of teacher mentorship and teacher leadership. So to Jolisa's really, really strong point around teacher preparation doesn't stop when you get your standard certificate. What are we doing to mentor and guide and support candidates in their early years of teaching. And how can the way we do that support and we provide that guidance and mentorship actually help our more veteran teachers have more satisfaction and joy in their jobs because they're a part of the continuous improvement of their teacher circle there on their campus. So through teacher leadership, more defined and structured teacher mentorship. And setting an aspirational bar for what quality prep looks like. I think the agency is doing a lot to get away from just being a bureaucratic enforcer of bottom line policies and actually driving and supporting the continuous improvement efforts. We're seeing an ed prep on our campuses, just across the ecosystem. It's really fun. Thank you. Jolisa we're going to pick up and pivot to you based on two things that Emily said so she talked about mentoring and high quality field experiences so what have you heard from teachers about the importance of these aspects of teacher preparation and to your point beyond that first year. First of all, mentoring is incredibly important to teachers. It's the difference between a great start and and a great disaster. We hear from teachers you know that they wanted when they went into teaching they wanted to stay a teacher. And so often teaching isn't just a career you enter it's a dream. You make a compact with. And so as you are entering for whatever pathway, you are in the beginning of a dream. And with a mentor and strong mentoring support through high quality mentorship where you have released time to talk with your mentor, and you have a you know some type of curriculum you're going through to grow in your craft, not just the support a good mentor brings and we all need that. And for those teachers their dream is being supported, and they're the, the ability to stay in the profession just gets a little bit easier. And so we've heard from you know one of the things when I talk with teachers is I've heard that a good mentor makes or breaks you, and that you can be assigned a mentor that isn't a good great match or you don't have the time to talk with that person. And so the quality of the mentorship program matters as much as having a mentor. And I also hear just incredible amount of gratefulness of people acknowledging that they're, they're standing on the shoulders of people who have come before, and they want to aspire to be that person later in their career. So I have teachers, you know, to Emily's point about teacher leadership teachers who see themselves growing as a teacher and want to continue to stay in the classroom but want to grow into leadership, leadership pathways that leave without leaving. So I think when you hear from teaching that mentors when I loved asking a teacher about their best mentor because their whole face changes, and they talk about what it meant to them to have the person that was both the emotional sport for the person who actually came alongside them and help them grow in their profession. Thanks so much. And as Joe Lisa mentioned today is World Teachers Day. And at CBF and out when we're presenting we hear people who say, I want to support teachers but is there anything I can actually do that would be meaningful to them so how do you answer that questions how can Texan support Texas teachers what does that look like from your seat and we'll begin with Jennifer has been quiet so we'll move over to Jennifer. I mean, some of it goes back to what I was last talking about which is this notion of the professionalization of teaching and just really emphasizing, not just, you know, in an advocacy context but in the social conversations that people have and in the, the circles that they run in really. I don't want to phrase spreading the gospel but I'm going to do it, but sort of spreading the gospel of the idea that this is, this is hard. This is hard to do well. This requires substantial financial support this requires substantial infrastructure, and, you know, and, and just reinforcing that advocacy is important advocacy matters advocacy makes a difference on that subject. And I realized that's a very broad way of getting at it, but, but I feel pretty strongly about that. I'm happy to jump point jump in. So, you know, I've been teaching for a while I taught 26 years before joining Ray Tran Texas and I would get those questions of your jolly side really want to do something nice for a teacher. And my answer was always pretty much the same which is write your lawmakers and tell them to invest in public education. Show up to your local school boards and invest in your teachers pay, and then the small ways, you know, they're definitely still ways to make a teacher's day I've adopted a teacher in my hometown I bring my teacher something each week to brighten his day. But what I really do to add to, you know, as you said, I'm looking support teachers is I'm elevating their voices and teaching them how to talk to policymakers about what it's going to take to keep them in the profession. I love the way you started by reminding us that you know teacher quality is the largest factor in student achievement, and we can't be embarrassed to say that we need to say our teachers are vital they're irreplaceable. We need to be advocating for what will keep them in the classroom we need to be listening to them. I think one of the best ways you show respect and professionalism is by realizing that teachers are experts at what they do. When we have an education expert on the news we should have a teacher they're the education expert when we are listening to policy we need to have teachers who are speaking up. I think it's one of the best parts of my job is getting to sit side by side with teachers and help them use that teacher voice to advocate for what they need. Jennifer you made such a wonderful point about the professionalism. I'm teachers I speak to get very emotional when I use the phrase that they're an expert, because they have felt so dehumanized over these past four years, and to hear someone talk about them as an expert is very affirming. And so I think our language matters in the way we talk about teachers, but our actions matter. And so, you know, we at razor and Texas our tagline is the future of Texas is in our public schools. And so I think it you know anytime there's an election public education is always on that ballot and it's important we remember that I get this question a lot. And I always have to take a little bit of a breath before I answer it because what I want to say what I'm going to say today is, do you really want to know. I feel like what someone that's how you're doing and we all say, oh, we're fine, but you know that we may not be fine, because there isn't an answer to this question that doesn't require an investment of some time and some effort. There are smaller investments and larger investments, but it's not just I really want to help teachers or let me post a quote on my Facebook page. I mean that that might get a smile from someone smiles matter but if you really want to make a difference and you really want to support elevating teaching teaching as a profession. It takes effort it is not it's taken a long time for teaching as a profession to get where it is today it's going to take a long time to elevate it to where we all everybody on this call I believe things that should be. So I'm generally not a negative person but that's my little bit of a cynical first reply to that, and I agree with everything that Joe Lisa and Jennifer said in terms of opportunities, the opportunities are countless and they are available. I think it's as simple as, you know, what are you doing at the school closest to you in your community whether you have a child there or not. Do you go to their any of their events do you support them in any way do you reach out have you been to a PTA meeting. Have you been to a school board meeting do you see how your school boards operate how involved and knowledgeable are you about the school system within your own community I think that's a great place to start. In terms of knowing and seeing what the problems are firsthand and what the opportunities and bright spots are firsthand, so you can elevate those, because I think the second piece that all of us have time to do is to be a disrupter like disrupt the narrative that those who can do those who can't teach. Flip that on its head and talk and think through with people how difficult and how complicated it is for some a dentist can't go into a room and do dentistry on 24 mouths at one time. And yet we basically expect teachers to be brain surgeons on 24 little brains at one time, eight hours a day, five days a week, the complexity of what it takes to be a teacher is both an art and a science. And I think we need to celebrate and recognize our teacher our teachers for the artists and scientists that they are in every way and every time and every opportunity that we get, both in big ways and small. Thank you. And now we'll move to our participant questions that we've had in the Q&A. Our first one is for Jennifer and a participant asked what is what does from your presentation so after we've had so much information in the past 40 minutes but we can think 20 minutes ago. What range does your data cover so is it the question is is it K-12 credentialed teacher specific or does it also include preschool and below ECE educators could you answer that question for us. My understanding and I don't want to make a, you know, absolute definitive statement without going back to the data source and checking. You know, that is that is my bias as a researcher. But my strong understanding is it's K-12. Thank you. And then we got another great question, which is for our entire panelists, our entire panel. What kinds of conversations are happening within each of your organizations about improving working conditions for teachers so not just salary but these day to day experiences which you're right like we're not it's not dentistry. It's a science. But what do we what do we do and what are y'all doing for these day to day experiences for all teachers but especially for early career teachers which we've really been talking about today. We share one focus that we've had related to mentorship and as we've said before, mentorship is as positive an experience for the mentors. It is for the mentee sometimes and has equal benefits for both. But one thing that we're working with school districts and campuses to do is make sure that they're building in the resources for that mentor. So both Lord willing a financial stipend to take on the extra work, but also time built into their schedule to where being a mentor and being that supportive person is baked into their job. It is not something layered on top of when they have time for it. So both the time and financial resources that warrant that merits the hard work that mentors are doing. We see that as something that you know you can't you can give someone money but you can't give them more time in the day. So how do we help districts look at their scheduling differently and prioritize mentorship and the mentor experience to be a positive one for both the mentor and mentee. I think that's one thing that we we are focused on right now. So Lisa, you want to jump in. I'd be happy to. So we have a special session coming on Monday. So we are very focused on how do we invest in our public schools. I think when we look at what our, our districts are doing, they're signaling to us the two things that they think would improve teachers quality of life. And we've seen districts adopt deficit budgets trying to increase teachers pay. We also seen districts do some very creative scheduling trying to get teachers more planning. And when we like peel back why, why don't teachers have better pay and why don't teachers have more planning. It is often a scarcity of resources at the district level. And so we are very focused on how do we get a better investment in public education. We are also very invested in the importance of mentoring. During the last session we testified on behalf of a scholarship program for teachers, and as well as we are working to help teachers use their own voice and talk about what that what needs to be said to improve their profession. So can I add something on that exact point, Jalissa, you like teed me up perfectly. We actually I think this is another bright spot. We just launched the first statewide teacher leadership fellowship so this is a group of 39 teachers that represent every region in the state every school type every content every grade level that it's an opportunity to two year fellowship where teachers can come and strengthen their, their own ability to advocate from inside the classroom for policies that affect their day to day experience opportunities to grow their leadership skills. So I think that's another both a bright spot and something we're doing to try to get the people closest to the problem at the table where people are trying to solve the problem right we do a lot of stuff why was a teacher 12 years ago. I really want to talk to someone who's a teacher today. And so making sure we're giving opportunities and voices to teachers. I really appreciate that about the child's but foundation and the approach to the work that they do is is centering the voices of the people who are affected by the problems that we're all trying to solve. And then from my perspective and I apologize for the fact that there's some noise outside my building right now so I hope y'all can still hear me. I think that it's, you know, we talked so much about the central role of the teacher as we should, but particularly with the last couple waves of, of, you know, budget cuts that have happened, you know, in response to national economic downturns going back to, you know, 2008 and the aftermath from that, there were massive cuts, even before teaching positions to all of the other really important staff in schools that do critical work for students, whose jobs then were put on the teachers in circumstances where those folks were cut. So you have a teacher who not only are they trying to wear all of the money hats that are required to be an instructional teacher and to do, you know, effective classroom management, but they're also trying to play some combination of roles, you know, related to being a counselor being a nurse being a janitor being a librarian being playing wearing all these different hats. And I think that that part of the conversation about, you know, supporting teachers effectively is making sure that schools are staffed in a way that teachers are not asked to wear any more hats than they already are, is quite a lot to begin with. One way that the Learning Policy Institute talks about this is through a research focus on community schools, which have really strong integrated systems of support for both the types of roles that I was talking about and other roles that, you know, help support student needs that might more typically, you know, be addressed outside of a school setting so health care, that sort of thing. And there's, there's quite a bit of work that LPI has put out talking about the promise of community schools when implemented effectively and so that's, that's just one iteration of how to make sense of that conversation but I think it's an important one to elevate. Thank you to Jennifer. Jennifer, thank you for making the point about the stress of wearing too many hats and I want to put a plug in. If you have not read the Charles Budd Foundation teacher poll. There's a statistic in there that just really strikes me is that 64% of our Texas teachers are reporting stress over staffing shortages. And there's another statistic talking about the stress of adequate support staff. I don't think we can stress enough how important is that we're not just supporting our teachers, but we're supporting the whole system and Jennifer I appreciate you bringing that up. Thank y'all and thanks to Lisa and Emily for the shout out to our research at the Charles Budd Foundation we do work incredibly hard to center the teacher voice and the teacher experience and use that to inform and support how we operate our programs for teachers in the state so I appreciate that we do have two more questions that are very pointed to Jennifer so Jennifer can you share, can you say it again and I tried to write it down as well so I would love to hear it again. It was your slide six about attrition versus new hires and the percent of new hires being driven by attrition. Would you mind sharing that again for us. What I mentioned is that that what I was calling healthy gaps over most of the past decade prior to the last two years were driven where somewhere between 84 and 95% of vacancies were explainable by prior year attrition. In 2021 2299.7% of statewide hires corresponded to gaps created by attrition. And in 2223 it was 97.6%. So those two high numbers in recent years are significantly larger than that 84 to 95% gap that we think is is a little bit healthier in terms of allowing you know other. Other workforce issues to to come into play. Thanks. And then yeah, and then we'll end on one more question and it's about your recommendations so we were ending with opportunities we're ending with recommendations. And so, one of the recommendations in the report is about funding working conditions, condition surveys like those used in other states to provide actual data. Would you mind speaking to that recommendation a little bit more. I can, and I will admit because it's been about six or seven months since we originally published this report that I do not have immediately in my head, the examples of states that have high quality working condition surveys that can be referenced and so, if whoever asked that question wants to contact me directly I think I can put my contact information in the chat I'd be happy to speak to that in more detail but the idea there. So the question of the, the survey that the teacher survey that the Charles but foundation puts out that was was referenced by Emily and joe Lisa earlier in our conversation is that better understanding exactly what it means to be a teacher exactly what it means to wear all the different hats that I just referenced exactly what it means to encounter some of the newer challenges newer policy issues newer sort of functions of the political prevailing wins and all of that. So understanding exactly what that means more qualitatively as well as getting quantitative data about things like hours worked about information like the but foundation provides on proportions of teachers who are working additional jobs outside the classroom out of financial necessity. And all of that, I think is really compelling for policymakers in terms of actually painting a picture that can help move the needle on some of these policies related to the teacher workforce. And like I said I'd be I'd be happy to get more specific via email but I just, I don't have the specific details in my head of who we thought were exemplars to pull from. So that was a short report so there was a lot of information in there it's all good. Well I want to thank everybody for their time. Attending this webinar and extend huge heartfelt gratitude to our panelists today and all the thoughtful questions we will be sharing a recording of this webinar and Jennifer's email is on that first slide of the webinar if you would like to reach out and again thank you so much. Have a great day.