We have a difficult time recruiting enough quality teachers in the U.S. After all, even if every single graduate of every selective college opted to become a teacher next year, it wouldn’t even replace natural attrition in a nation with 3.5 million educators. While this has long made concerns of a staffing shortage a recurring theme in K-12 schooling, much of the blame should perhaps be reserved for onerous licensure systems that create roadblocks to professional entry without ensuring professional competence. And now, the pandemic-induced “Great Resignation” has exacerbated things, with droves of teachers reporting that they plan to retire earlier than expected due to pandemic-related concerns.
The situation calls for some creative problem-solving, which makes it worth taking heed of Tennessee’s announcement last week that it has just established a permanent program allowing teachers to gain a license through an apprenticeship rather than a costly education degree. This new “Grow Your Own” model provides a sorely needed alternative to existing K-12 licensure systems, under which training the average teacher costs about $25,000 and requires 1,500 hours.
Tennessee will become the first state with permanent, federally funded teacher apprenticeship … [+]
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Now, a costly, cumbersome licensure process would still make good sense if it ensured that teachers were ready for the job. But it doesn’t. In fact, researchers report no difference in performance between certified and noncertified teachers. Supervisors also don’t seem to think licenses mean much: The Aspen Institute has found that just 7 percent of superintendents and 13 percent of principals think certification guarantees that a teacher “has what it takes” to be effective in the classroom. While alternative licensure programs exist, the vast majority are owned and operated by schools of education, with the culture, the curriculum, and even the cost largely unchanged.
That’s what makes Tennessee’s new “Grow Your Own” program so intriguing. It is the nation’s first registered apprenticeship program for teaching. Rather than require aspiring teachers to endure education school classes of suspect quality, it will allow would-be teachers to work alongside veteran educators and be mentored by them. Indeed, in a step that may make it easier for low-income adults to pursue teaching jobs, apprentices will be able to earn a modest wage as they learn their craft while paying nothing for tuition or textbooks—rather than paying thousands of dollars for the privilege. After one to three years, the program’s candidates will be certified as full-fledged classroom teachers.
The “Grow Your Own” initiative builds on the dozens of existing programs that emerged in August 2020 to train aspiring teachers at no cost to the candidates. Whereas those programs were supported by state-issued grants, created primarily with COVID relief funds, funding for the “Grow Your Own” program comes from the Department of Labor, in much the same way that it funds apprenticeships in other fields, with an initial investment in excess of $20 million.
The first program to be approved as a permanent apprenticeship initiative was designed by the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System and Austin Peay State University’s Teacher Residency Program. Tennessee Department of Education officials are optimistic, however, that more programs will be approved in time. Meanwhile, the Clarksville-Montgomery program alone already offers 650 apprenticeship slots. If all 650 candidates satisfactorily complete the program, department officials calculate that it would be enough to reduce the state’s teacher shortfall by a third.
As Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn puts it, the program makes it possible “to become teachers for free while earning a wage,” offering a model that could help states “combat teacher shortages, remove barriers to becoming an educator for people from all backgrounds and continue to invest in the teaching profession.”
Tennessee’s new venture enjoys bipartisan support. It’s been launched by a Republican governor and legislature and has also been endorsed by the Biden administration’s Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, who calls it “a model for states across the country that are working to address shortages in the educator workforce and expand the pipeline into the teaching profession.”
As with any such initiative, the tricky part is always the translation of a good idea from paper to practice. So, we’ll see how that goes. But Tennessee has launched a program full of promise that could potentially point the way to more effectively staffing America’s classrooms.
