kindergartners at P.S. 212 in Jackson Heights, Queens. And while Griffith Tanaka gets to teach in both Spanish and English for “the best class of humans,” it comes at an enormous cost: She owes $35,000 in student loans for her undergraduate and graduate education.
Under current law, if a highly-qualified math, science, or special education teacher is employed for five years in a high-need elementary or secondary school, they are eligible for up to $5,000 in student loan forgiveness. If the SPELL Act is passed, these teachers, including teachers of English learners and bilingual teachers, would be eligible for an increased benefit of $17,500 in loan forgiveness.
She was able to get $5,000 in loans forgiven through a federal program, and was able to bring her total of $45,000 in loans down to what it is today. But there were seemingly endless exams to pass, even more so because she was planning to teach bilingual education. Baecher would like to see more highly-qualified teachers in classrooms, especially for students from under-resourced communities. Both Baecher and Griffith Tanaka have seen high turnovers in schools of greater need, and hope to see more teachers stay for longer than five years — the number of years currently considered to be highly qualified — in their teaching environments.
Most states, 32 to be exact, are experiencing a shortage of teachers for English-learning students, according to the U.S. Department of Education. New York is no exception, and there is a persistent shortage of teachers for bilingual education and English as a second language, among others. But there is a great need for these types of teachers: Five million students, or 10% of all public-school students nationwide, are English language learners. English-learning students are the fastest growing group of students, according to the National Education Association. By 2025, the population of English-learning students is estimated to grow to 25% of public school students.