A PERSPECTIVE FROM THE CLASSROOM

The Best Career Move You Haven’t Made Yet

Why Teaching — and CITE — Are the Right Choice, Right Now

By Dr. Donald James | 30+ Years in Public Education  |  February 2026

I have been in public education for more than thirty years. Some of those years were spent teaching in the inner-city schools of Philadelphia and New York City — experiences that shaped everything I know about what this work demands and what it gives back. If you asked me today whether I would do it all over again, my answer would come without a moment’s hesitation: yes. Not because every day is easy — they’re not — but because the rewards of this career are real, lasting, and unlike anything I have ever found elsewhere.

Teaching gave me purpose. It gave me community. It gave me the extraordinary privilege of watching a child believe in themselves for the very first time. During my years as a classroom teacher — including time spent in some of the most under-resourced schools in inner-city Philadelphia and New York City — I saw firsthand what is at stake when a great educator shows up for kids every day. And quietly, practically, this career gave me something that friends in finance and law and medicine have told me they envied more than anything: time. Time to actually be present for my own family.

Now, as New York City and New York State confront a teacher shortage that is no longer a distant warning but an urgent daily reality, I find myself wanting to speak directly to the people turning this idea over in their minds — wondering if they have what it takes, wondering if the timing is right. Let me tell you three things: the need is urgent and real, the rewards are genuine and lasting, and the path — through CITE — is more achievable, affordable, and practical than anything else in this metro area.

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The Shortage Is Not Coming. It Is Here.

New York State officials estimate the state will need more than 180,000 new teachers in the next decade. That number reflects the collision of forces happening at once: an aging teacher workforce approaching retirement, New York State’s class size reduction mandate requiring thousands of additional hires, and a training pipeline that has been declining for years.

The numbers in New York City are staggering. In 2022, NYC public schools saw the highest teacher attrition rates in a decade, with the overall pool of teachers declining by 2,000 in a single year. NYC must hire an estimated 18,000 new teachers over the next five years to meet class size mandates — with reports indicating 7,000 to 9,000 hires needed in a single year alone to comply with state requirements.

The sharpest shortages are exactly where skilled educators matter most: special education, bilingual education, and STEM classrooms. Applications for high school special education teacher positions fell hundreds short of open positions statewide. Across New York, 80% of school districts have at least one staff member teaching a subject without proper certification — a figure that has doubled since 2019.

Nationally, approximately 411,500 teaching positions are either unfilled or filled by teachers not fully certified for their assignments — roughly 1 in 8 of all teaching positions in the country. The need is not softening. It is accelerating. And that means historic opportunity for anyone prepared to step into the role.

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The Fulfillment Is Real — and the Data Proves It

I know the pushback. People cite the stress, the workload, the headlines about burnout and attrition. Those conversations are real and they matter. But they tell only part of the story — and the part that gets left out is the most important part.

Fulfillment is even higher among newer educators: two-thirds of teachers who have been in the classroom fewer than six years say their work is fulfilling extremely often or often. Sixty-two percent say it is frequently enjoyable. Seven in ten teachers are extremely or very satisfied with their relationships with colleagues at their school.

That community piece is something I was not prepared for when I entered this career. The bonds you build with colleagues who are in the classroom alongside you, who share your students and your challenges and your small daily victories — that professional kinship is deep in a way that is hard to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it.

And I have had former students come back to find me years later — young adults now — telling me that I was the reason they believed they could. No performance bonus, no quarterly metric, has ever come close to giving me what those moments give me.

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Synchronous vs. Asynchronous: The Training Model Matters More Than You Think

If you are considering entering teaching while working full time, the most consequential decision you will make is not which subject you will teach — it is which program will actually get you to the finish line.

The research on this is clear and consistent. Asynchronous online programs — where you log in on your own time, watch recorded lectures, and post to discussion boards — place the entire burden of momentum, self-discipline, and accountability on the learner. For working adults with families, this structure carries a dramatically higher dropout risk. Studies consistently show that asynchronous learners report weaker engagement, lower motivation, and significantly reduced learning outcomes compared to their synchronous peers.

By contrast, synchronous programs — where you meet live with your cohort and instructor at a scheduled time — replicate the structure of a learning community. Research documents that synchronous learners report stronger focus, greater sense of contribution, higher motivation, and better course performance. Instructors can actively support self-regulatory behaviors in real time. You are not alone in a queue. You are part of a cohort that moves through the program together.

Completion rates like that do not happen by accident. They happen when a program is designed around the realities of working adults’ lives — and when the synchronous model provides the accountability, community, and professional momentum that keep students moving forward through to certification.

Start your Teaching Journey Today

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CITE: The Program Built for How New Yorkers Actually Live

For more than 30 years, the Center for Integrated Training and Education — CITE — has been preparing New York’s educators, and doing it better than anyone else in this metro area. In that time, CITE has helped more than 10,000 teachers, administrators, counselors, and professionals advance their careers through partner institutions. The results speak for themselves: 25% of all principals in New York City are graduates of CITE partner programs.

CITE’s flagship offering is a dual-certification Master’s degree program in partnership with the University of Mount Saint Vincent. The program awards a Master’s degree plus two New York State teaching licenses — in both general and special education — at either the Early Childhood (Birth–Grade 2) or Childhood (Grades 1–6) level. All in five semesters.

The course schedule is the key to why it works: online weekend classes that don’t require you to miss a workday. Classes take place on weekends and school holidays. All courses are synchronous — meaning you meet live with your cohort and instructors, building relationships and accountability alongside your studies. CITE locks in your tuition for the entirety of the program, includes free certification exam prep, and is fully transparent about fees from day one.

CITE also offers a Master’s in TESOL for educators serving English language learners and an Educational Administration program (SBL/SDL/Master’s) with St. Joseph’s University, New York, and with Russell Sage College (SBL/SDL) for those pursuing school leadership. Every facilitator is a former building or district-level leader from the NYC area. These are not generic instructors delivering a national curriculum — they are practitioners who know our schools, our students, and our certification requirements from the inside.

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The Cost Comparison: CITE vs. Every Other Metro Option

Graduate education in New York is expensive. Many aspiring teachers look at the price tags of area programs and feel the door closing before it ever opens. This is one more area where CITE is simply in a category of its own.

Note: Cost figures reflect published 2024–25 graduate tuition rates. Full program totals vary. CITE offers the lowest per-credit cost for dual New York State teacher certification in the metro area.

CITE delivers what no other metro-area program can match: the lowest per-credit cost for dual certification in New York State, a fully synchronous cohort model that produces industry-leading completion rates, outstanding certification exam pass rates, a weekend schedule that accommodates working adults, locked-in tuition, and free test prep — backed by 30 years of producing New York City’s teachers and school leaders.

Start your Teaching Journey Today

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The Moment Is Now. The Path Is Clear.

I have been in public education for more than thirty years. During my time as a classroom teacher — including years in the inner-city schools of Philadelphia and New York City — I saw what happens when a gifted, committed teacher walks into a room, and I saw the gap left when a classroom goes without one. The research is unambiguous: a single highly effective teacher can change the trajectory of a student’s entire life. I have been on both sides of that equation.

The job security in teaching has never been stronger. The career mobility is real. The average NYC teacher salary ranks second nationally, and step increases compound meaningfully over a career. The pension is real. The schedule is real. And the work — the actual work of educating a child — is among the most meaningful things a human being can do.

If you have been thinking about this — turning the idea over in your mind — let me offer you the perspective of someone who has spent more than thirty years in public education, including years teaching in the inner-city schools of Philadelphia and New York City: the timing will never be more right than it is right now.

The city needs you. The children need you. And CITE is the smartest, most affordable, most flexible, and most proven way to get there.