Teacher shortages are shrinking world language offerings at schools across the state, and that’s translating into a long-term pipeline issue for New Yorkers.
As the number of teacher prep programs across the state has declined, so have the number of programs specifically focused on world language instruction. Today, there are just 18 programs to serve the hiring needs of the entire state.
As a result, school districts’ world language departments are often vying for new teachers from a tiny pool of candidates, and if districts can’t find a language teacher for their program, they may be forced to downsize.
“World language teacher shortages often look different than shortages in other disciplines,” said Mike Mitchell, a high school Spanish teacher, member of the Bethlehem Central Teachers Association and executive director of the New York State Association for Language Teachers. In many cases, Mitchell explained, when vacancies in world languages appear, districts reduce the number of sections, combine levels, eliminate upper-level courses, and even phase out languages completely.
High school French teacher Denise Mahns, a member of the Fayetteville-Manlius TA and the American Association of Teachers of French, has been called on to advocate for keeping language programs in place at schools across the state. Now, her own district is going through a transition. A fairly affluent district, Fayetteville-Manlius offers high schoolers French, Spanish, German and Latin, but due to budget constraints and shifting enrollment, the district has decided to forgo replacing a retiring Spanish teacher. The world language department will absorb the impact, with class sizes across the grades increasing and some teachers being asked to take on extra courses.
“We’re being stretched to our limits,” Mahns said.
Still, she acknowledges; they are in a better position than many.
“I have a colleague in a more rural district, and she is the language department for the district,” Mahns said.
Unfortunately, limiting student access to languages only further exacerbates the teacher shortage.
“When students lose access to sustained language study — especially at the elementary level or through more advanced courses of study in high school — they may also lose pathways to the Seal of Biliteracy, college credit opportunities, and, perhaps most importantly, the inspiration to become future language educators themselves,” Mitchell said.
“It’s a vicious cycle,” said Barbara Patterson, United Liverpool Faculty Association and chair of NYSUT’s World Languages Subject Area Committee. “If we're not creating a learning environment for students, then they’re not going to go into education, and colleges are going to cut more programs, and the cycle is going to keep continuing.”
Patterson said she has seen the patterns play out repeatedly: cash-strapped districts that lose language programs because they can’t compete with more monied districts for new teachers and districts that slash their language programs because bare-bones budgets force them to choose between state-mandated “core” curriculum and so-called “incidentals” like world languages.
Only, world languages aren’t incidental, Patterson, Mitchell and Mahns emphasized. World language programs boast substantial benefits for students, and research has shown that taking a world language boosts brain function, strengthens vocabulary, results in higher ACT and SAT scores in reading, writing and math, opens career paths, and is linked to higher salaries upon employment.
But perhaps most importantly, because cultural competence and interpersonal communication are embedded in language standards, students who take world languages develop respect and understanding for people different than themselves.
“Culture is embedded in what we do every day, so students develop empathy and tolerance for other people, and that is so important today,” Patterson said. “It doesn’t matter whether they go to college, or go straight into the workforce, wherever they live, they’ve got to be able to get along with the people around them.”
To increase the supply of world language teachers, educators say the certification process needs to be streamlined. According to NYSUT’s 2026 report, “Forging a New Future: Teacher Recruitment and Certification,” recent changes to certification requirements have reinforced the perception that getting a teaching certificate in New York is “difficult, messy and overly complicated.” The report makes a case for simplifying — not weakening — the tangled certification system and recommends that certification requirements be communicated more clearly, especially to second career teachers and transitional certificate holders.
Mitchell agrees. “The solution is not lowering standards, but strengthening the pipeline through better data collection, paid student teaching, mentorship, university partnerships, streamlined certification pathways, and intentional recruitment of multilingual and heritage speakers,” he said.
Prospective teachers also need help understanding the certification process, said Patterson. “If you start out with your bachelor’s degree, the college you attend will usually help you navigate the certification process, but people who take other paths to teaching don’t have that same level of assistance,” she said.
The process is especially hard for people who speak another language but are learning English, and who might otherwise make terrific world language teaching candidates.
“I think we really need to work on getting the certification exam put into languages that don’t put non-native speakers at a deficit,” Patterson said. Likewise, non-native speakers need additional resources to help them decode the path to certification.
In addition to supporting teacher prep programs in every corner of the state, funding needs to be restored for study abroad and paid internships, said Mahns. And something more fundamental.
“We need to do a better job communicating the love we have for our profession,” said Mahns. “We also need to combat the idea that STEM is the only way to make a decent living and try to make teaching — and especially language teaching — a more attractive prospect for students.”
After all, New York is one of the most international states in the country, and its students need to be able to meet increasingly global demands.
“In a state as diverse and globally connected as New York, language learning supports workforce readiness, college and career preparation, civic engagement, cultural understanding, and the development of globally competent graduates,” said Mitchell.