Tennessee Grow Your Own Center’s Post

Did you know...you can hold a Masters degree and therefore qualify to teach at any community college within your subject area, but still be deemed unqualified to teach high school students? What if California provided a fast track to a preliminary Single Subject teaching credential to anyone holding an accredited Masters degree, and required just one methods course to clear it? What if we replaced an unpaid "student teaching" requirement with a paid teacher apprenticeship program? We need to reform teacher credentialing to best promote dual enrollment, prepare for the looming teacher shortage, and ensure high quality education for our secondary students! #teaching #dualenrollment

RICHMOND — Today the Virginia Department of Education awarded its second round of Grow Your Own Grants totaling $1.52 million to 24 school divisions to assist in creating registered teacher apprenticeship programs to help recruit and train well-prepared future teachers within their communities. A focused approach to helping school divisions deal with teacher recruitment challenges, Grow Your Own programs help future teachers work towards their bachelor’s degrees and fulfill all licensure requirements, so that upon completion of the program participants will be ready to accept a full-time teaching position in their communities. The VDOE has partnered with the National Center for Grow Your Own to become a national leader in helping develop effective registered apprenticeship programs to assist school divisions in recruiting teacher candidates from their local communities. Under this model, aspiring Virginia teacher candidates can include paraprofessionals and other staff already working in the schools, dual-enrolled graduating high school seniors, or career switchers with an interest in classroom teaching. Twenty-eight Virginia school divisions have launched Grow Your Own registered teacher apprenticeship programs during the 2023-2024 school year.

Teachers contribute more to reading and math outcomes than any other factor of schooling. That’s why it’s crucial to have the supports in place to recruit and retain high-quality, effective educators.   We work with our states to develop and support teacher apprenticeship programs, policy changes that lead to higher starting salaries for teachers, adult learning tools that promote engaging professional development, and so much more. It’s all part of the R5CC difference! https://lnkd.in/gHfktFkR

Live from American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) 2024 Annual Meeting this week: Join Integrating the Science of Learning and Development (SoLD) into Registered Teaching Apprenticeships on February 16, 2024, 11 a.m. MT. https://lnkd.in/dVpmJi-5 Amid the continued interest in registered teaching apprenticeships, examples highlighting the progress and challenges programs have faced in their pursuit of impactful "learn while you earn" models have been limited. Particularly, as leaders navigate the added complexity of merging multiple funding streams and meeting programmatic requirements, there remains a clear need for opportunities to explore different approaches and hear lessons from early implementation efforts. To meet this need, The Pathways Alliance and EdPrepLab invite attendees to join three programs as they share their recent efforts to advance paid apprenticeships in their different state and local contexts and reflect on the progress and challenges in building models that not only meet the moment where there are pressing teacher shortages to tackle but to also provide quality preparation pathways that can support long-term teacher quality and that reflect the most up-to-date research on how students learn and develop. Panelists include: Amelia A. Brown, Ph.D., Director, Office of Professional Licensure, College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Cindy Gutierrez, Director, Clinical Teacher Education & Office of Partnerships, School of Education & Human Development, University of Colorado Denver Susan Keesey, Director, School of Teacher Education and Associate Professor, Special Education, Western Kentucky University #AACTE24

Providing cost-free access to career training and teacher credentialing could be the solution many districts and schools need to alleviate teacher shortages! However, we will also have to watch very closely how this progresses. Teacher burnout is already so high, and now it’s up to teachers to also train new teachers. It could be a moment where this good idea finally adds the burden that makes experienced educators, who are capable of being these mentor-teacher, burnout and leave, exacerbating the problem this is supposed to fix. For me, I feel very nervous as I celebrate this program’s foundation. As a departmental leader at a DCPS school, I have not heard a single bit of news about the program prior to this post. It also seems OSSE is still hiring Program Specialists for this. That combination of no internal news and the program is still filling roles tasked with rolling out and managing the program does not inspire confidence that this currently being done with fidelity. To ensure this program provides the opportunities to those it aims to benefit, as well as not cause more strain on our teachers, OSSE would do well to build this program gradually while being proactive about every single step it takes along the way. I want so much for this to succeed! It could go a long way to turning around the crisis our education system has faced for so long now!

The first information session for high school grads is in one week! Check out the website linked below to learn more & register 

📍 On Tuesday June 11, 3:00-4:30pm ET, the Comprehensive Center Network will host a panel of experts to discuss how four well-established Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Programs (R-TAPs) have successfully funded their initiatives. Program leaders from Indiana, New Hampshire, New York, and Tennessee will share their funding strategies and approaches and answer your questions.     Interested in joining? Here’s what you should know:  R-TAPs were designed to address persistent and hard-to-fill teacher shortages. Practitioners and policymakers are seeking innovative strategies to recruit and retain a well-prepared teacher workforce. R-TAPs, endorsed by the U.S. Department of Education and US Department of Labor, offer a viable solution.     Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Programs increases access to teaching career pathways, which in turn increases students’ access to high-quality educators.     Register for this session to learn more: https://lnkd.in/g-KFe9YW #Teaching #TeacherTraining 

Live from American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) 2024 Annual Meeting this week: Join Integrating the Science of Learning and Development (SoLD) into Registered Teaching Apprenticeships on February 16, 2024, 11 a.m. MT. https://lnkd.in/dVpmJi-5 Amid the continued interest in registered teaching apprenticeships, examples highlighting the progress and challenges programs have faced in their pursuit of impactful "learn while you earn" models have been limited. Particularly, as leaders navigate the added complexity of merging multiple funding streams and meeting programmatic requirements, there remains a clear need for opportunities to explore different approaches and hear lessons from early implementation efforts. To meet this need, The Pathways Alliance and EdPrepLab invite attendees to join three programs as they share their recent efforts to advance paid apprenticeships in their different state and local contexts and reflect on the progress and challenges in building models that not only meet the moment where there are pressing teacher shortages to tackle but to also provide quality preparation pathways that can support long-term teacher quality and that reflect the most up-to-date research on how students learn and develop. Panelists include: Amelia A. Brown, Ph.D., Director, Office of Professional Licensure, College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville Cindy Gutierrez, Director, Clinical Teacher Education & Office of Partnerships, School of Education & Human Development, University of Colorado Denver Susan Keesey, Director, School of Teacher Education and Associate Professor, Special Education, Western Kentucky University #AACTE24

The Pathways for Paraprofessionals program is a partnership between Missouri’s K-12 schools and Missouri State’s College of Education to help prepare future special education teachers. About 200 districts are participating, equaling a third of the state’s districts. The program follows the registered apprenticeship model from the U.S. Department of Labor. The growing interest and success of the Pathways for Paras program comes as the registered teacher apprenticeship model is gaining momentum nationwide as a way to address educator shortages — including the consistently critical shortage area of special education. Where else have you seen the registered teacher apprenticeship model implemented in schools? Are they working to address staffing shortages? #staffedup #edchat #teachershortages

Hi Folks, This is a great and FREE workshop on DEIA for educators interested in strategies to diversify the educator workforce. Research shows that all students benefit from a diversified teacher workforce. Yet across the United States, teachers are in high demand, particularly Black and Latinx males. Educator Registered Apprenticeship Programs (RAPs) represent a novel strategy for recruiting more diverse candidates into the field; however, programs must be intentional to ensure that those individuals are supported and sustained. https://lnkd.in/gfCRMiie