By: Rachel Zemach

When I got my Deaf Education credential, I was hired the same day. I was shocked by how challenging the job was, but I also fell deeply in love with it. I taught there for ten years, and the feeling never left me; teaching is an astonishing career. Yet we are in a national crisis, with teacher shortages. And the problem for—and impact on—deaf students is even more dire.

There are 186,000 Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children in the US, and, in California at least, they score academically lower than any other minority group. However, Deaf education teacher training programs are shutting down. In 2007, there were 68 such programs nationwide, but twelve years later, nine had closed. Of the surviving programs, only 17 are currently accredited!

For programs like the one at the University of Utah, “It’s more than just devastating,” Emily Bergeson said. “Years of working to build up this program, and now they’re shutting it down. From our view, it’s like you’ve just rolled a boulder up a mountain, and it’s finally there, and then they just shove it over the edge, and you’re like, ‘What? How’d that happen? That’s [our] only pipeline [for new teachers,] and we just cut it.” 

Most DHH children are born to hearing families, and their parents have no prior Deaf experience. They get limited, often dangerously misleading advice from medical professionals, who tell them to focus on speech/hearing devices rather than signing. 85% of Deaf children are educated in public schools. Highly qualified Deaf teachers tend to gravitate to—and be hired by— the friendlier environs of Deaf schools. 

Due to the increasing push towards what hearing professionals see as positive “inclusion” for Deaf students in public schools—but it doesn’t take our communication needs into consideration—our students are becoming more isolated than ever. Marc Marschark, Director of the Center for Education Research Partnerships, said, “Deaf children are not hearing children who can’t hear. Rather, they have unique learning abilities that teachers must understand to teach them well.” Yet many students are currently served by itinerant teachers, who see the students for only a half hour weekly and often lack training.

Huge numbers of teachers are retiring soon, and the demand to replace them cannot easily be met. The low level of support, low pay, lack of teacher mentors, and lack of ability to move up to leadership roles all contribute to the problem of poor retention. Rural areas, in particular, have difficulty attracting DHH staff. This then provides the administration with additional motivation to drop ASL altogether and switch their schools towards assimilation rather than Deaf-pride models or close the program altogether. 

It is ironic that in 2024, when ASL is the third most popular language studied by college students, and Deaf people are undergoing a boom in the media, so many Deaf kids graduate with low academics, educational trauma, and a longing to have attended a Deaf school.

However, there is one spot of excellent news! Sacramento State University in North California is opening a new Deaf education teacher training program in Fall 2025, which promises to be pretty extraordinary! 

Future coordinator Dr. Nate Dutra explains: “Our program has been developing for the past two years. It is Deaf-led and Deaf-centered. We are fortunate to have a strong community of experienced and dedicated teachers of the Deaf, veterans who understand the challenges and dynamics that new DHH teachers will face.”

The program will be largely online, and as I read about it and look back at my own Deaf education program at San Francisco State University (which has now shut down), I am thrilled by how excellent this new one sounds. Its graduates will be prepared on multiple levels for the challenges of this career, even in “mainstream” public schools. 

CSUS is also opening an ASL Instruction program. Dutra says, “There’s a synergy here… the more qualified DHH and ASL teachers we can produce, the more our Deaf community will thrive. Our Deaf children deserve caring, competent teachers who are fluent in ASL and understand Deaf culture.” More ASL-fluent people will lead to more interest in DHH teaching.

In a book I wrote about my teaching experiences, I said, “There were times I marveled at having the job; days when I had the sense of gem after gem being dropped in my lap.” For all its challenges, teaching is also an honor and quite literally changes lives.

With training from CSUS and support from the connections made there, graduates can venture out ready to take on the complex issues of language deprivation, discrimination, and ignorance and start turning the wheels in the direction of educational equity, as our wonderful students deserve.

To inquire about the program, contact Dr. Nate Dutra at dutra@csus.edu.

For more information, visit the website https://rachelzemach.com/. 

Published by: Holy Minoza