Growing the Teaching Profession 

A Blueprint to Establishing a Place-Based Grow Your Own Program 

It’s time for a better approach to teacher recruitment and development. 

65 percent of districts nationwide identify not having enough candidates for open positions as a “big challenge.”[i] 
While the student population is 52.5 percent children of color, the teacher workforce is 81.9 percent white.[ii] 
As the student population is projected to grow by more 3 million students over the next decade, teacher education programs have seen a 35 percent drop in enrollment since 2009.[iii] 
Almost 60 percent of teachers work within 20 miles of where they went to high school.[iv] 
54 percent of parents do not want their children to consider education as a profession.[v]
Grow your own programs recruit students from their current high school population to enter educator pathway programs. Districts and states then partner with local educator preparation programs to offer enrollment incentives to students, keeping them close to home so that they will return as teachers to the classrooms where they currently learn.
PDK International worked with experts to create a step-by-step guide to creating and implementing a place-based grow your own program, helping you improve your efforts to recruit, support, and develop teachers that come from and reflect your communities.

Get the Blueprint

Four actions you can take right now:  

  1. Begin creating a stakeholder advisory committee to explore the work.  
  2. Review data to identify problems this program will address: Where are your greatest educator shortages? What are the student and teacher demographics in your district and state?  What does your retention and attrition data look like? 
  3. Research what policies, funding sources and programs already exist to support the creation of an educator pathway program.  
  4. Explore potential  funders, including philanthropy and local businesses.  

Highlights from the Blueprint:

Students who are attracted to a career in education tend to want to make a positive impact in their communities and believe in the power of educators to do so.

Programs across the country have developed innovative strategies for bringing students back to their home districts after their postsecondary education, including awarding scholarships to attend local universities and committing to hiring graduates upon their completion of a degree and teacher certification.

Financial support can be found through CTSO experiences and programs built to support workforce development, such as career and technical education (CTE) funds through Perkins V.

Since [grow your own] programs make deliberate efforts to recruit diverse candidates who are more representative of the student population, they are one promising approach to produce a more diverse workforce and meet critical shortages in key subject areas, such as bilingual education.

Research from New America, 2018[vi] 

Grow Your Own with Educators Rising

PDK and Educators Rising has created a best-practices gold standard program – the Educators Rising Academy Curriculum that introduces high school students to the teaching profession and provides support for a comprehensive clinical experience. Created by teachers, for teachers, the Academy emphasizes fundamental teaching practices that are critical for high school students to develop as they take their first steps on the path to becoming accomplished professionals.  Learn more  about our academy curriculum and purchase today to receive a subsidy. PDK members are offered an additional 5% discount. If you are not a member,  join today. 

Contact us to learn more

[i] American Association for Employment in Education. (2018). Educator Supply and Demand Report 2017-18. Sycamore, IL: Author.   

[ii] National Center for Education Statistics. (2018, August 20). Back to School by the Numbers: 2018. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/blogs/nces/post/back-to-school-by-the-numbers-2018   

[iii] Sutcher, L., Darling-Hammond, L., & Carver-Thomas, D. (2016). A coming crisis in teaching? Teacher supply, demand, and shortages in the U.S.. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute. 

[iv] PDK International. (2018). The 50th annual PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools. https://pdkpoll.org/assets/downloads/2018pdkpoll50.pdf

[v] Reininger, M. (2012). Hometown Disadvantage? It Depends on Where You’re From: Teachers’ Location Preferences and the Implications for Staffing Schools. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 34(2), 127-145. https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Reininger%20HA%20EEPA%202012.pdf 

[vi] Muñiz, J. (2018, February 28). Diversifying the Teacher Workforce with ‘Grow Your Own’ Programs. New America. https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/edcentral/diversifying-teacher-workforce-grow-your-own-pathways/