It’s a small step but an important one in dealing with Missouri’s growing teacher shortage, especially in science and math. It’s a program tailor-made for the long-time business professionals who think their real-life expertise in a particular field should be used to teach children. But they haven’t been to teachers college and don’t have an education degree. They might be qualified to teach college courses. But in Missouri, they can’t teach high school without teacher certification.

The state senate has advanced a bill that will let those professionals get an alternative teaching certification, to take their skills to the high school classroom. Senator LuAnn Ridgeway of Smithville She describes her plan as a piece of the puzzle, not the solution to the teacher shortage. The expects the program to generate about 100 teachers a year. Missouri school districts need to replace about 6,000 teachers a year. The program will require extensive training. But it also provides funding to pay for most of that training. Ridgeway hopes that makes the process affordable to the person who has to keep working while they’re trained for their second career. The senate could send the bill to the House this week.

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