A new state stipend program is compensating educators for mandatory unpaid student-teaching, a welcome support whose immediate success has proven its necessity. Now the state must find more money to expand the program.
The Shapiro administration launched the Educator Pipeline Support Grant Program in 2023, allocating a combined $15 million over two budget cycles. The program pays student teachers between $10,000 and $15,000 for their mandatory 12-week trainings, guaranteeing a reasonable wage of at least $20 an hour.
Within an hour of applications going live on April 10, all 700 available stipends were gone, while another 4,500 applications rolled in.
Student-teaching is one of the biggest hurdles for would-be educators. They must give up other day jobs while continuing to pay tuition credits, draining savings and often going into debt — all while working full-time. It’s a hard sell for a career that isn’t known for being lucrative.
It also poses a barrier to an essential field that has been hemorrhaging professionals for a decade. Last year, for the first time in the state’s history, the amount of emergency teaching permits outpaced newly certified teachers, a dire milestone for teachers and students alike.
The current system is no longer working, and removing the student teaching requirement would do a massive disservice to educators-in-training, who benefit from the hands-on classroom experience. Further, placing the financial burden on school districts would only exacerbate existing problems, putting schools in the absurd position of choosing whether to compensate their few existing teachers or training up the new ones meant to support them.
The stipend program effectively addresses all these issues at the root. But, with 4,500 total applicants, it would take a cool $75 million to grant every student a stipend. Teach Plus, a teacher advocacy organization, is pushing Gov. Josh Shapiro to allocate the full sum.
Even if the full $75 million can’t be scraped together, the program’s success shows clearly that a significant boost is warranted.
There are other tweaks that would improve the program while the Shapiro Administration irons out funding. Stipends are currently distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis, a problem for students who may not be available to fight for an application slot at 9 a.m. on a weekday. Opening an application window and then utilizing a lottery system, much like Section 8 Housing vouchers, would make the process more equitable.
Student teaching stipends are a smart and necessary way to quickly support the teacher pipeline while other reforms, such as structural changes to teacher education at the secondary and post-secondary level, are ironed out and implemented. Above all, it will ensure many great teachers who otherwise might have been blocked by the costs make it to the classroom.
First Published: April 17, 2024, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: April 18, 2024, 2:12 a.m.
