What does "Grow Your Own" Teacher Talent Mean?

Your teacher talent is the single most influential school factor in student achievement (Aaronson et al., 2007; Chetty et al., 2014; Kane & Staiger, 2008). Your onsite teachers are more important than a high-quality curriculum, high-tech classrooms, and the newest technology. The team at MathTrack Institute has been connecting with hundreds of schools across the U.S., and we consistently hear that recruiting teachers is challenging. Many school leaders share that hiring hard-to-find content-specific teachers comes down to district competition. Hiring away from your neighbors is not ideal, and it also brings toxicity to the work that many have shared that they do not enjoy.

“We're literally pulling people off the streets to teach math" ~Assistant Superintendent from a large district in Indiana.

This hiring environment is not getting better. The traditional pipeline (new university grads) still provides 75% of new teacher entries, but that pipeline has seen a year-over-year decline, resulting in the teacher need outpacing the availability of new teachers. Some states have more considerable pipeline reductions than others, affecting localities that weren’t affected 20 years ago. At the same time, localized shortages are still in effect, where rural, urban, and schools that serve a majority of students who are experiencing poverty are impacted more than others. On a national level, most schools' teacher pipelines are worse off than 20 years ago. Locally, it is certainly more acute in some areas than others. Both are true; you can see it in the numbers and/or ask any district hiring director - they’ll tell you.

For more than 15 years, research studies suggest approximately 85% of teachers take their first teaching job within 40 miles of where they grew up and lived. Your current students are tomorrow’s teachers.

While you’ve likely heard the phrase Grow Your Own (GYO) Talent, you might not know precisely what it means. There’s debate among experts on the precise definition, but overall, GYO programs are designed to recruit, prepare, and hire students and community members to become teachers within their communities (Toshalis, 2014). More precisely, GYO programs are designed to recruit high-school students, paraeducators, community organizers, and parents from the local community to join the local educator workforce. In previous articles, we've discussed the value of paraeducators in this paradigm. We turn to the next chapter for this edition:  the students currently in your classrooms.

Help Your Students Become Your Teachers with Zero Debt

We call this approach the High School graduation to the paraprofessional pipeline. Don’t worry — we’re not suggesting you hire a recent grad to teach Algebra fresh off the graduation stage. However, this population can bring some significant advantages to your talent pipeline.

Your recruitment policies and goals likely include ethno-racial diversity and community cultural wealth (understanding your community's way of being) as a priority. Your students have this naturally.

Your school and community want to produce college-ready students. Now, you can go one step further and ensure they are college-ready by hiring them while enrolled in an apprenticeship-based bachelor's degree program where you are the employer. It’s a natural next step in shepherding successful students into a successful — and meaningful — adulthood—a true virtuous circle.

Imagine telling your students, who have always wanted to be a professional teacher, that they can work as paraprofessionals in their home district and graduate with a college degree and license within 3 years debt-free. How many students would jump at this thoughtful answer to “What do I do next?”

Registered Apprenticeship Programs (RAP) or apprenticeship-based degree programs are growing nationally. MathTrack Institute offers a program like this, specifically for mathematics educators. The innovative apprenticeship-based bachelor’s degrees approach offers a solution for both schools and high-school students. This means that by the time they are 21 or 22 years old, your students will have 3 years of experience teaching, a bachelor's degree, and a professional license to teach, all with zero student loan debt. A proper grow-your-own talent program option would provide an incredible opportunity for your school or district and the students you serve.

Let's Talk!!

At MathTrack, we are building our first high-school programs for mathematics talent in #Indiana. If you want to learn more, contact us or reach out to me directly through LinkedIN. If you'd like to learn more about other options for your teacher talent, please reach out to us or our friends at Reach University or the National Center for Grow Your Own (NCGYO).