Building on our years of experience in educational research, we are pleased to release a new issue brief. The brief looks at the problem of teacher shortages and the need for more teachers of color in Michigan, and a solution that may work for many communities.
Grow Your Own (GYO) programs aim to eliminate school-level educator shortages and diversify staff by providing a pathway for local candidates into the teaching profession. In other words, “preparing teachers from the community for the community.”[i]
GYO programs may appeal to educators’ preference for living and working in the communities where they were raised. Teachers that are from the community in which they work have firsthand knowledge of the community and local relationships, which may benefit the schools and the students they serve.
In the brief we discuss the core elements of the programs, key considerations, and suggested practices and policies for implementing GYO programs. You can read PPA’s issue brief here.
For more about PPA’s work in education research and policy, visit here, or contact Dr. Daniel Quinn at dquinn@publicpolicy.com.
[i] Amaya Garcia, Grow Your Own Teachers: A 50-State Scan of Policies and Programs (Washington, DC: New America, July 20, 2020), accessed October 26, 2021 .