Pennsylvania has an urgent need to convince more high school students to return to classrooms as teachers.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, the number of college students completing education degrees declined by 25% from 2011 through 2020. In Pennsylvania, according to the state Department of Education, the number declined by 66% over the same period.
As reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer, Temple and West Chester universities have launched separate programs to convince more high school students to become teachers.
Temple launched Temple Education Scholars in 2018. It allows academically qualified high school students to take introductory education courses at Temple, for credit and for free, and includes opportunities for students to get an inside look at teaching from the teacher’s side of the desk. About 60 students have enrolled, 20 of whom have become education majors.
Temple also has a program to help paraprofessionals who already work in Philadelphia schools to become teachers; 84 people are enrolled.
West Chester’s newly announced program is similar. If participating high school students maintain “B” averages, West Chester automatically will admit them as education majors.
The programs make sense on multiple levels. They give students a different perspective on teaching beyond what they experience in their own classrooms. And as Pam Grossman, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, told the Inquirer: “Most people teach within 30 miles of where they went to high school. If you recruit locally, people are more likely to stay.”
Illinois launched the “grow your own” concept in 2005. Washington and Texas later launched statewide grant programs.
The decline in education majors also is of particular interest to the state’s struggling state university system, in that it is at least partially behind declining enrollment overall.
The state Legislature should make the “grown your own” project a statewide initiative, funding grants to help universities that offer education majors, along with nearby school districts, introduce more high school students to the prospect of teaching as a career.
— The Times Tribune
