On March 11, CEA member Greg Mild delivered the following testimony to the Ohio State Board of Education. This testimony is in response to a proposal to increase teacher licensure fees, following the state legislature’s failure to fully fund the Board.
President LaRue and Members of the Board,
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Greg Mild and I am a professional educator in the Columbus City School District. I have worked on our Local Professional Development Committee for close to 20 years, was the LPDC signer for most of that time, renewing close to 1,000 licenses annually, and I was the district’s Resident Educator Program Coordinator for 10 years. I am also a proud and active member of both my local union, the Columbus Education Association, and our state affiliate, the Ohio Education Association.
I am deeply concerned that the Ohio Legislature has failed to follow through on their commitment to fully fund the State Board of Education following the recent restructuring. I was even more concerned when I found out that one option put forward for filling this budget shortfall was as increase in fees on Ohio educators. As Ohio’s lawmakers continue to pass laws without proper funding, a decision by the State Board of Education to pass the buck and instead directly bill Ohio’s educators is a sorely misguided strategy. While an increase in licensure fees may seem like a simple fix, such an action fails to consider the larger picture of Ohio’s “tax on teachers”.
In addition to the existing licensure renewal fees, educators dedicate significant portions of their income to not only comply with a myriad of state laws, but to simply provide basic educational resources for their students. A 2023 analysis by the Learning Policy Institute reported that Ohio’s teachers spend an average of $480 annually on unreimbursed supplies for their classrooms.
Most educators must pay out-of-pocket to obtain the legally-required continuing education credits every five years. A total of 180 hours of professional development, equivalent to six semester hours, awaits each educator after their license has been renewed. Many educators seek to not only improve their practice through this process, but they put in the time and effort to obtain additional credentials, sometimes once again required by law, and other times by choice.
The Third Grade Reading Guarantee, for example, another well-known law passed by the Ohio General Assembly, resulted in the need for many existing educators to add a Reading Endorsement to their existing license. While the cost to add the endorsement to an existing license isn’t necessarily prohibitive, the unplanned expense of 12-15 semester hours of tuition is staggering. At Ohio’s large public universities, that Reading Endorsement costs in the neighborhood of $10,000 in tuition and fees. But the cost doesn’t end there – once the teacher completes the approved coursework, they must then pay an additional $100+ to take the required Ohio Assessment for Educators.
When the time to renew their license does comes along, educators must then find $200 to renew, an additional $20 for each additional license, and around $40 to get fingerprinted for the required updated background check. If the educator is also involved in leading extra-curricular athletic or academic activities, they’ll also need to find the funds to renew their Pupil Activity Permit. And for these fees we don’t even receive printed copies of our licenses as we did in years past – just a printable pdf file.
Perhaps it seems like this once-every-five-years cost is reasonable, but this is simply one of numerous expenses by educators to remain licensed in a profession that is already struggling to attract and retain qualified individuals. A report by Policy Matters from last year explains that Ohio is not gaining enough new teachers to replace those leaving our public schools. In the past decade, there has been a significant decline in newly-licensed teachers in Ohio, from 7,634 in 2013, down to 5,000 in 2022. During that same decade, Ohio has licensed fewer homegrown teachers through in-state programs (down from 6,414 in 2013 to just 3,903 last year) while simultaneously attracting fewer new teachers from out-of-state (down from 892 in 2013 to 468 last year).
Ohio’s legislators must be held accountable to foot the bill for the operations of the State Board of Education related to professional conduct investigations, teacher evaluation, territory transfers, and all other board functions required by Ohio Revised Code. Licensure fees should never be viewed as a possible funding source for anything other than the operations directly related to the Office of Licensure.
It is true that you, the State Board of Education, are not to blame for the Ohio General Assembly’s funding failures. It is not your fault that Ohio’s legislators continue to abdicate their responsibility to fund the litany of laws they enact about education. But if you decide that you must pass along the cost of these additional unfunded mandates to hardworking educators, then you are complicit.