In Brief

  • “Grow-your-own” is a broad and vaguely-defined strategy to create pathways into teaching for community members (often high school students, paraprofessionals, and other school staff).

  • Registered teacher apprenticeship is a recent approach adopted by many states, including PA, to create more affordable pathways into teaching.

  • As #PANeedsTeachers advocates for funding for grow-your-own teacher apprenticeship programs, there are opportunities to use state funding to incentivize high-quality teacher preparation that will support both recruitment and retention efforts.

Policy Design Principles

  • Teacher shortages cannot be solved in the long term by lowering the bar to become a teacher. 

  • Any policy solutions that involve investment of additional public funds should improve both the quality and quantity of the educator workforce. 

  • Policy solutions should function primarily as incentives rather than requirements in order to reduce compliance mentality.

Case Study: Tennessee Grow-Your-Own Grant Program

Tennessee’s Grow-Your-Own competitive grant program awarded $100k grants to educator preparation programs (EPPs) that had an MOU with at least one local education agency (LEA). The grant included the following incentives and terms: 

  • Become a teacher for free: EPPs covered all costs (tuition, books, fees) with extra points for certification exams

  • All graduates had to get dual certified in either SPED or ESL

  • LEAs had to agree to employ participants as education assistants as part of a 1-2 year residency, serving in classrooms of highly effective teachers 

  • Incorporated diversity into the rubric

  • 20% of the scoring was based on the budget, with preference for programs that could prepare more candidates for the same amount of money

Current PA Context 

  • Many examples of grow-your-own programs exist in PA; state funding has been proposed in recent years but not appropriated. Legislation has also been proposed but not passed. Examples that were highlighted in the Solutions Playbook include the Capital Area Pathways to Teaching, Keystone College/ Scranton School District program, and the West Chester University PRIZE program.

  • Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit was awarded state funding by the PA Department of Labor & Industry (in partnership with PDE) to develop the Teacher Apprenticeship Program in Pennsylvania (TAP.PA), a template for LEAs and EPPs to apply to register programs as apprenticeships. Several programs have already been approved or are in process with the PA Apprenticeship and Training Council. 

  • Forthcoming grant dollars are expected to support future teacher apprenticeship programs.

Key Questions:

  • How can we design grow-your-own teacher apprenticeship programs to incentivize high-quality, evidence-based teacher preparation that will lead to greater teacher effectiveness and retention?

  • What specific practices do we want to incentivize? 

    • What is the evidence to support these practices?

    • Are there any possible negative consequences to these incentives?

  • How can we connect grow-your-own and teacher apprenticeship to build political buy-in and promote sustainability of funding?