#PANeedsTeachers Praises Student-Teacher Stipend Funding and Other Measures to Address Teacher Shortage Crisis in Pennsylvania State Budget

Harrisburg, PA — Today, after a more than 130-day delay, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed the 2025-26 state budget. The final budget invests $30 million into student teacher stipends, a $10 million increase from the prior year. While this is still $20-25 million short of the full funding needed to meet the program’s demand, it is a 50% increase over last year’s appropriation, representing a strong bipartisan commitment to this important investment. 

"We are grateful for the legislature’s and governor’s ongoing support for student teacher stipends," said Laura Boyce, Executive Director of Teach Plus Pennsylvania and a leader with #PANeedsTeachers. “For so many aspiring educators, access to this program is the difference between finishing their degree and being forced to find another line of work. We must continue to act boldly to fix the urgent teacher shortage crisis, which jeopardizes the success of not only our children’s education, but the economy as a whole.”

Beyond student teacher stipends, the 2025-26 budget also includes several other measures aimed at addressing the teacher shortage crisis:

• Over $500 million in adequacy funding for underfunded K–12 schools, much of which will be used to recruit and retain qualified educators;

• $25 million for child care staff recruitment and retention initiatives;

• A $7.5 million increase for Grow PA, a program that can support aspiring educators with scholarships of $5,000 per year;

• School code changes to modernize certification structures and reduce barriers to entry, including capping certification fees at $50 and updating certification grade spans to PreK–6 and 7–12.

These are important steps, but with 97% of Pennsylvania counties reporting at least moderate teacher shortages and over 60% facing severe or extreme gaps, fully funding the student teacher stipend program remains the clearest, fastest path to reversing the trend.

The student teacher stipend program was originally created through the bipartisan Act 33 of 2023, with $10 million allocated in the FY23-24 budget and an additional $20 million appropriated in the FY24-25 budget. 

The program offers student teachers who commit to teaching in Pennsylvania for three years after graduation a $10,000 stipend during student teaching to help cover the costs of tuition, rent, food, commuting to their school site, and other necessities that make it possible for them to earn their degrees. Those student teaching in hard-to-staff schools qualify for an additional $5,000. 

Because the FY23-24 budget was delayed, the initial $10 million appropriation, along with the $20 million from FY24-25, was applied to the 2024-25 school year. Approximately 4,000 students applied for stipends for the 2024-2025 school year, but the combined $30 million available only covered about half of the students who needed support. 

“With thousands of classroom vacancies across the state, it is concerning that thousands of aspiring educators will be left without access to the student teacher stipend program,” said Boyce. “We look forward to working closely with Governor Shapiro, the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and members of the General Assembly to solve this urgent workforce crisis.”

#PANeedsTeachers, a statewide coalition led by Teach Plus and the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), has led efforts to alleviate the teacher shortage crisis. For the past three years, they have held an annual summit that brings together educators, experts, and advocates to explore the root causes of the shortage and possible solutions. The 2025 summit, Teaching Reimagined, will be held next Wednesday, November 19, at the PaTTAN Center in Harrisburg. It will examine how new approaches to staffing and scheduling can improve working conditions for educators, leverage advanced roles, and support effective instructional models.

The coalition has released multiple reports detailing their findings, including:

• #PANeedsTeachers: Addressing Pennsylvania's Teacher Shortage Crisis Through Systemic Solutions,

• Solutions Playbook: Locally-Developed Strategies for Attracting, Preparing, and Retaining Teachers, and 

• The new Advancing Quality and Removing Barriers brief series, which calls for certification and preparation systems that maintain high standards while eliminating unnecessary hurdles that keep talented, diverse educators out of the profession.

#PANeedsTeachers has also developed tools to track the severity of teacher shortages by county and state senate districts. For more information, www.paneedsteachers.com/. 

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About Teach Plus and the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE)

Teach Plus: The mission of Teach Plus is to empower excellent, experienced, and diverse teachers to take leadership over key policy and practice issues that affect their students' success. Since 2009, Teach Plus has developed thousands of teacher leaders across the country to exercise their leadership in shaping education policy and improving teaching and learning, to create an education system driven by access and excellence for all. For more information, www.teachplus.org

NCEE: NCEE studies the world’s highest-performing and fastest-improving education systems and the policies guiding them to understand what they do, how they do it, and the context and challenges they face. The evidence base informs partnerships with policymakers and educators to co-design systems that meet the needs of all learners and rise to the challenge of our collective future. For more information, visit www.ncee.org.