Paid Student Teaching is the Future

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-generated

Hannah (00:02):

So I believe that by paying student teachers, we incentivize the pathway to becoming one. We recruit and retain more diverse educators because we have an accessible pathway to become an educator. And I also believe that we know that we are valuable, but the money does not match the level of value that we provide for our communities.

Natieka (00:26):

Hello and welcome to School Me, the National Education Association's podcast dedicated to helping educators thrive at every stage of their careers. I'm your host, Natieka Samuels. Today we're discussing a critical issue facing future educators, which is how they're compensated or rather, not compensated for their student teaching assignments. For too long, student teachers have been expected to work full-time in classrooms without pay, creating barriers for aspiring educators and worsening the teacher shortage. Joining me is Hannah St. Clair, chair of NEA's Aspiring Educators program. Hannah has been deeply involved in the movement to secure paid student teaching and she's here to break down why this issue matters, what progress has been made, and how educators and allies can continue pushing for change. Thank you so much for joining us today, Hannah.

Hannah (01:13):

Thank you for having me.

Natieka (01:14):

All right, so let's start off with the basics, just a little bit about yourself and your current role.

Hannah (01:20):

My name is Hannah St. Clair. I use she/they pronouns and I currently serve as the NEA's Aspiring Educators Chair. I'm a nationally elected position where I represent and serve our aspiring educator members in the union. And I love it. I get to plan events, travel around the country to visit our state and campus chapters of aspiring educators. And I'm just having a great time in this role.

Natieka (01:48):

And why did you decide that you wanted to become an educator?

Hannah (01:52):

I knew from a young age that I wanted to be an educator. I grew up on an island in Alaska, Kodiak Island, and it was really hard for Kodiak schools to retain and recruit educators. And so in my second grade year I had three teachers and they kept cycling us from room to room when we got a new long-term sub. And so seven-year-old me was pretty stubborn and I told myself, Hey, if I become a teacher then my future students won't have to go through this.

(02:22):

And then I moved out of Alaska to a small town in Kansas and I once again got to see that the education that myself and my classmates up in Alaska received looked different than what we were receiving in Kansas. And then I moved to a suburb of Kansas City and it was an affluent public school and there were way more resources in that school than either of the schools I had been to before. And once again, I was confused why that was the case, why different areas of the country, different zip codes would dictate the quality of education that students received.

(02:59):

So I maintained that desire to be an educator, went to school for education at the University of Oregon and found myself in the union surrounded by passionate, aspiring educators all the way to retired educators and just continued to want to be a part of this fight for educational justice.

Natieka (03:17):

Can you talk actually a bit about the Aspiring Educators program and why it was important for you to get involved?

Hannah (03:24):

The Aspiring Educators Program is a membership within the National Education Association for our pre-service educators. So educators who are in college studying to become a teacher or a speech language pathologist, a counselor, many different opportunities there. And I joined the NEA Aspiring Educators as a freshman in college because I was an out-of-state student, really passionate about education and heard about this club on campus for education majors. I attended, found out it was part of a union. I didn't really know what that meant as an 18-year-old, but I learned pretty quickly from attending as many opportunities as I could within my campus chapter and state union to learn as much as I could and met other passionate aspiring educators.

(04:18):

So Aspiring Educators within NEA is really focused on connecting pre-service educators with the union that will ideally be their community and their power base throughout their entire career. So by joining before you're an educator, you already know those opportunities, you already have those connections, you're already gaining professional development even before you enter a classroom.

Natieka (04:44):

Amazing. And who better to explain it than the Chair. So let's start talking about our reason for being here today, which is student teaching and the compensation or lack thereof that aspiring educators receive. From your experience talking to the members of the Aspiring Educators program, what is the student teaching experience like for most education programs and how much of their time are they spending in classrooms before they're certified?

Hannah (05:16):

So it does look really different around the whole country. There's no one standard definition of what student teaching can be. Some universities and colleges will have student teachers be in a classroom for a semester, maybe 10 weeks or maybe a whole year, and that whole year could be in one classroom at some universities or sometimes you switch from different grade levels for one semester. Or for example in music education you might be in an elementary music classroom for a semester and then a secondary music classroom for a semester, so you get to see both sides, but it can really look different.

(05:58):

And in my experience, my student teaching was a year long in one classroom. I was in a fourth grade classroom and my program had us increasing our amount of hours we were in that classroom. So we did 10 weeks where we were in the classroom 10 hours a week, then we had 10 weeks we were there 20 hours a week, then 10 weeks, 40 hours a week. And throughout the year we progressed the amount of time we were teaching and actually in charge of the classroom, which in my opinion was a good way to really gain confidence in my ability to teach and be in front of 27 students at a time.

(06:38):

Some programs, like I mentioned, if they're a semester long, that amount of time to go from observing to full teaching can be really quick. It can be one week you're observing the next week you're expected to teach one class. Next week you're expected to teach half the day and by the end of 10 weeks you're teaching the full day. So it can feel like you're running a sprint and have no time to breathe. And overall it looks very different in my opinion. And research also shows that the more experience you can have student teaching with a high quality mentor teacher, a year or more is really the amount of time needed to gain that confidence and to have the experience to really feel like you can be an educator on your own and stay an educator. So those year-long experiences are typically the ones that are preparing more confident educators.

Natieka (07:39):

During that time, how is that balanced with coursework and the school part rather than the internship part?

Hannah (07:49):

Some programs that I've learned of will really emphasize having your coursework done before your student teaching. So maybe if it's a four-year degree, then your junior year you would be finishing up your coursework and you would be taking licensure tests, and then your senior year would be focused on being in the classroom and maybe you have a seminar class so that you're still in connection with your ed prep program. So that's one way that I've heard about.

(08:20):

At my university, we were taking courses the entire time during our student teaching and technically it was supposed to be less and less courses as our student teaching ramped up, but it was still most nights I was on campus after I was teaching from 7:00 to 4:00 every day. So it was long days student teaching where you are both a teacher and a student at the same time. And so a lot of student teachers are in that reality, whether their ed prep programs do require them to take classes throughout their student teaching or not, they're often meeting with supervisors who are observing them from their lessons in the classroom and they have to do reflections on those. They're applying for jobs, they're interviewing, they're doing professional development so that by the time the school year finishes, they know they're ready to really take over a classroom.

Natieka (09:18):

Sounds like a lot. And for a lot of other majors, that's not how it works. You might intern over the summer or not have that at the same time or have a very part-time job situation. So I can see how that probably discourages a lot of people, but also trains people to expect chaos.

Hannah (09:37):

Yes. Yes, exactly.

Natieka (09:39):

So how are most student teachers compensated for doing the work of, in your case when you're 40 hours a week in the classroom, essentially doing the work of a teacher?

Hannah (09:52):

Great question. And sadly the answer is most student teachers are not compensated and most student teachers are expected to pay tuition while they are student teaching. So in reality, they're paying to work. So that has been the traditional sense of student teaching for the majority of time. In the last handful of years there has been a very big push within the aspiring educators space in NEA as well as a push for apprenticeship models to find ways of compensation for student teaching or for para-educators to return to school and receive compensation to become certified. So there's been a movement for that in the past couple of years, but primarily student teachers are unpaid and working a full-time job while taking classes and paying for those classes.

Natieka (10:53):

Yeah, I would imagine that with that schedule, there's no time to get the standard on-campus job even.

Hannah (11:00):

Yeah, I tried and while I was full-time working, I am not going to lie, I was banking in sick hours because I needed a paycheck at the end of the month.

Natieka (11:11):

So how do you feel that unpaid student teaching contributes to some of the problems that we experience in education today? The big problem that everybody's always talking about is the teacher shortage. So how do you feel like this contributes to that issue and others?

Hannah (11:29):

Yes. There is a clear line between the unpaid, inaccessible pathway to education that includes student teaching to our teacher shortage. In our world actually, there's about 44 million unfilled vacancies in our schools and that number is only going up. And so the individuals who want to become an educator have to either have the financial support of family, so generational wealth to help them go through school, which leaves out so many individuals because of the history of racism within our country. And so we know that the majority of educators in our schools, I know this is a podcast so you can't see me, but I am a white woman. I come from a middle-class family and I am very clearly represented in the educators who are in our schools. And I do not represent the majority of the students in our schools.

(12:33):

And so our students of color are not seeing themselves. There is a lack of culturally responsive pedagogy because white educators do not have the same lived experiences as our students. And unpaid student teaching limits the amount of individuals who can become a teacher, who can become a certified teacher because it is unjust, in my opinion, to ask and expect individuals to spend a year of their life working and paying to work to then enter a job where we know over and over that it is underpaid. So the unpaid student teaching is a barrier that keeps so many educators from being able to become certified and become teachers in our schools.

Natieka (13:23):

In addition to just clearing the path for anybody to become a teacher, unpaid student teaching provides a barrier for people of color who are interested in actually accessing this career path. So can you talk a little bit more about how any of the programs that you've heard of tackle this issue of diversifying the profession.

Hannah (13:47):

In terms of financial accessibility to move as a pathway to diversify the profession, there are two main ways that I know about, and one of them is through registered apprenticeship programs. And this one is really focused more on para educators who are already employed by school districts, that the school districts fund their coursework for a one to two year period and pay them while they are student teaching in that district. And then at the end of that coursework and student teaching, they would become certified in that school district. And so that is more of a grow your own style of funding. And that is not as focused on aspiring educators who go to college and are studying and going through their coursework and not yet employed by a district. One pathway is the registered apprenticeships, not as focused on student teaching, but it is a pathway to para educators becoming certified.

(14:52):

The other pathway is stipends and through legislative funding. And so there's multiple states that have passed legislation in the last few years to compensate student teachers for either their semester or year in a classroom. It's often not that of a living wage, but it is something. For example, Kentucky has a $5,000 stipend for Kentucky residents who are student teachers. Pennsylvania has $10,000 a year and Maryland has at most $20,000 a year are three that I have off the top of my head. But those are other strategies that state legislatures are using to increase affordability for student teachers within their states.

Natieka (15:42):

And for anyone listening, we recently did an episode with the Washington Education Association about their registered apprenticeship program. So if you want to learn more about how that actually looks, you can find that episode in our show listing. So how does not being paid for student teaching shape the way that educators sort of understand their jobs and their worth and how the career should work?

Hannah (16:12):

I believe that by expecting our student teachers to work unpaid, we are sending a message explicitly that your labor is not worth your time and your labor is not valued. You're not valuable, is really the message overall that's sent. And so when a student teacher finishes their time and they were not paid or they were given a small amount that really didn't cover their basic needs, when you get your first job and you get your first paycheck, it feels like so much compared to the nothing that you were receiving previously. And even if you're making below what someone else with a similar or five year degree would have, you made so little in your time as a student teacher and as a college student, that any amount of money can feel like a celebration. So it continues to perpetuate the idea and the reality that our educators are underpaid and undervalued for their work.

(17:18):

And so I believe that by paying individuals for their labor, whether it's in student teaching or apprenticeship, then those individuals will know that their time and their work is valuable and that they deserve to be compensated for that. So when they become educators, they'll be able to have more of an idea of, Hey, I work hard. I provide for this community, I provide for my students and I deserve to be compensated justly for the work that I am doing.

Natieka (17:52):

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(18:02):

And this is something that NEA has been pushing for quite a while. It's not a new issue, but it is something that the Aspiring Educators program has also taken on as a priority, which makes sense. It's you all who are most affected by these policies or these changes. What steps have actually been taken toward changing the landscape for student teachers so far?

Hannah (18:29):

In the time that I've been an aspiring educator, which is now five and a half years, three years ago I want to say is when I started really hearing about this conversation. The NEA board actually brought this as a lobbying issue a handful of years ago, and it was tied to funding from work studies and how to reinvent work studies to include student teacher in that internship time. So that was legislatively when that conversation started happening within NEA that I knew about.

(19:02):

But before that, there has been research done within NEA's teacher quality department to say that, Hey, we should really be compensating people for their work. We know that student teachers can focus on student teaching and not how am I going to pay my rent? How am I going to buy my groceries? Then they are more confident at the end of their student teaching. They are more prepared. They were able to really dive deeply into it.

(19:31):

So that research has been done for the last decade and decade to five years was really a lot of research being done. And then three-ish years ago the legislative side began. And then over the last three years, there's been a huge push within aspiring educators, as you mentioned, and we have been preparing how to talk to your legislators in your own states about getting paid student teaching. There have been multiple other organizations outside of NEA that have been working on registered apprenticeships and residency models that have become partners with NEA.

(20:10):

So when I became Chair, I was meeting with one of the staff people in my department who does this research as part of his work, and I found a treasure trove of resources around paid student teaching and how to really understand the landscape. So I've been working on putting together what in my head feels like a four-part playbook of how to win paid student teaching, how to get compensated for your labor.

(20:40):

And so I've been working on that with the goal of it becoming an action center, that NEA members and really allies in this work can use to mobilize for compensation. And that mobilization, like I mentioned, can be with legislators to advocate for stipends. But really one of the most successful ways that has been found to compensate our aspiring educators is directly between Ed Prep programs and districts working together to have the aspiring educators really embedded into the districts and treated as employees who are working and benefiting the students and having a funding sort of happen that way.

(21:27):

And so we're also working on resources to really teach people how do you have a conversation with your College of Ed Dean about this? How do you have a conversation asking your Ed Prep program advisor if there is a conversation happening with the local district who has student teachers in there? So we're trying to find lots of different avenues to make sure that what works in one location might not work in another. So trying to have different options of advocacy routes and ways to compensate as many student teachers as we can.

Natieka (22:03):

So NEA and the Aspiring Educators program are putting together a resource hub, and I think it's going to include a lot of the things that you just mentioned. So I'll make sure to include a link to that in the show notes when it is ready.

(22:16):

So you've already mentioned a couple of examples of victories or stipends specifically that are toward diversifying the profession, but I imagine there are more examples of the ways that we've actually had some victories. So can you share some stories of movement on the paid student teaching front?

Hannah (22:37):

You actually mentioned the Washington Education Association's apprenticeship program, which was one example I was going to bring up too. It is the first union-led educator apprenticeship in the country, and it is having special educators who are paras in the schools, do coursework with the WEA, get certified to be special educators.

(22:59):

And I reached out to their team and I asked for some stories about what the experience was going through that registered apprenticeship. And when I asked the question, what kept you from being an educator previously, the answer was student teaching. It was an unpaid barrier that individuals could not take time off from actually having a steady income to pay for their needs to become certified to be an educator.

(23:28):

And when asked about the financial support of the WEA's registered apprenticeship, this individual mentioned that they were finally able to work for the school district they were already employed for, but take their coursework. And by having that level of income come in, they were able to pay their mortgage, they were able to take care of their kids. They didn't have to rely on that feeling of how am I going to take care of my family if I choose this path? And they mentioned that they were in the first cohort of aspiring educators in there, and it was only $1000 for tuition at that point. And they also received money towards their classroom. So they were given support to become that educator that it opened the door completely for them to become certified and do what they want to do and be embedded into the community that they already were in and wanted to continue to be in.

(24:24):

Also in New Mexico, the University of New Mexico's Ed Prep program partnered with the Albuquerque Public Schools and the Albuquerque Federation of Teachers to pay every student teacher $35,000 a year, which is huge.

(24:40):

And there's actually a member on my advisory committee of aspiring educators who helps plan our national conference and provides support for aspiring educators through that pathway. He is receiving this pay for his student teaching this year. And when my team was in person in DC in October, we were talking about paid student teaching. And I had individuals who were sharing that, "Hey, in our state we're advocating for $10,000." And we were all like, that's awesome. And I went, "Did you know how much he's making?" And they were like, "No, how much are you making?" And he's like, "I'm making 35,000." And our jaws dropped, because none of us even had dreamed yet that we could advocate for that much. But now that that is a reality in New Mexico right now, it really sends the message to student teachers all around the country that you deserve more than breadcrumbs. This is work and you deserve to be paid for your work and be able to be a person at the end of the day and not someone who is making so little that you can't afford to really live in our country.

Natieka (25:51):

To go from 10 to 35 is a huge jump. And having that example to hold up is so valuable for the fight, I think. So what do you think that states who haven't taken these steps or districts that haven't taken these steps can learn from the wins that you just cited? I mean, obviously New Mexico, Washington, all the places that we've talked about, what can they learn and what can the people who are listening who really believe in this, what can they look forward to hopefully in the future?

Hannah (26:28):

So I kind of broke it down into the different players, I guess, and the different kind of members and allies we have in education to think about what different people could do. So for educators who are in schools or for district leaders like principals and admin who are interested in this, I would really suggest just having an open conversation about what you can do to support the student teachers in your schools. And that's going to look different depending on the different communities and different school needs.

(27:02):

But there is an organization called Prepared to Teach, and they actually have a tool where districts can put in how many teacher vacancies they have, how many para vacancies they have, and the funding that takes, and the funding that it takes to recruit and induct and mentor new teachers. And you can put in that data and then it will tell you, Hey, if we were to give every student teacher $20,000, what would be the program costs overall? How could we make it balance? And how could the investment in our student teachers really reduce the fees of the recruitment induction and mentorship of new teachers? Because it takes creativity to really figure out how to fund this.

(27:49):

And so for in-school educators, I would really recommend talking to your principals and your admin about this initiative and how district funding could be shifted around. And then for admin, principals, district leaders, considering where unfilled positions are and how paying student teachers or apprentices could really benefit your district long-term by filling those vacancies with certified and confident, competent educators.

(28:23):

If we have people who are listening who are higher education professors or working in higher education, I would really recommend connecting with the College of Education on your campus if you have colleagues there to really ask, have you heard of a registered apprenticeship in education? Is there a conversation about pathways to compensate student teachers or any conversation about reducing tuition and fees of student teachers during their time working in classrooms, and opening that conversation up to just consider a different pathway.

(28:58):

For individuals who know a student teacher, we have these lived experiences. We are more than willing and welcome to share them. So please, if you're interested in learning more and wanting to advocate on the legislative side or bringing it up to principals, admin, ask a student teacher, either a current one or if you have early career educators in your school, they probably student taught. And you could ask them, what was it like for you? What was your student teaching like? How was it mentally? How was it financially? Were there any impacts on you that really created a difficulty to becoming an educator?

(29:37):

So for our union members who, if you attend your state assemblies or are involved in your state association, then when aspiring educators are advocating for compensation, please support us. Whether that's at large state assembly meetings and we come to a mic and we say, "Hey, we believe we should be compensated for this." Please tell us you agree, help us in that advocacy. And then when it comes to actually putting that advocacy into action, we would so appreciate you standing with us, elevating and amplifying our experiences to legislators, to other leaders and policymakers who could push for this in our respective states.

Natieka (30:22):

And that brings to mind actually a question about how would current educators benefit from their student teachers being paid? Because obviously we're already dealing with the problem of full-time certified educators not being paid enough themselves and being told that there's not enough funding, there's not enough money. And we never want to pit people against each other of because I get something, you don't get something. So can we talk a little bit about the benefit for everybody, not just the people who are getting paid a little bit of money to ease their way through the rest of their college experience?

Hannah (31:01):

Really, the paying of student teachers is cheaper than filling educator vacancies in our schools. And that is in the long term and in the short term. Because there are so many unfilled vacancies in our schools, our educators who are in schools are less supported than they deserve to be, than they should be. And our students are less supported because we have less resources and less support in our schools. And by having our student teachers compensated for their work, our student teachers are more likely to stay in education past five years. So it lowers the cost that districts have to pay to fill teacher vacancies and recruit, induct, and mentor a new teacher. And so by having our student teachers receive compensation, they are more likely to stay in our schools for a longer amount of time, which supports the educators already in our schools by having a consistent and confident, competent new educator.

(32:05):

And it supports our students in our schools because they have consistency, they have stability, they have once again, certified educators who are prepared to teach. And by ensuring that we have that compensation from the student teaching, we're making sure that the educators who are in the schools already, have new colleagues, have new co-workers who are going to stay in education past the third year mark when we know that individuals without that appropriate preparation end up leaving the teaching profession within three years, about 70 to 80% of the time. So this revolving door of under prepared teachers impacts the educators in the school too, and it impacts the culture of the school and the value that we place in public education for our educators and our students.

Natieka (33:00):

To get to the overall vision, what do you think it would mean to live in a place, a world, where all student teachers are paid for their work from the beginning and then going into the career with that behind them?

Hannah (33:15):

I think that if student teachers were paid for their work, then our profession would be one that is sought after. I think that there are so many individuals in the country who want to become educators, and we have so many students who when asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? A teacher is a huge one that students will say. But when it comes to actually becoming a teacher, having that barrier sends so many people away.

(33:47):

So I believe that by paying student teachers, we incentivize the pathway to becoming one. We recruit and retain more diverse educators because we have an accessible pathway to become an educator. And I also believe that we know that we are valuable, but the money does not match the level of value that we provide for our communities. And I guess my biggest hope is that when our student teachers become educators, after they've been paid for student teaching and they receive their paychecks, it doesn't have to feel like, oh my God, this is the biggest paycheck I've ever received. Because education is not that way.

(34:26):

And so going forward as an educator, as an early career educator, as an educator who goes and teaches for years, those educators are also continuing to push and advocate for increased paychecks for themselves. So we raise the financial support for educators more than just for student teachers. It should be for all of our educators and raising our pay for the entirety of our career.

Natieka (34:53):

So what's next for this movement? I know that you were talking about developing some resources that people could use, but where are we going in the next year or two?

Hannah (35:02):

To be very honest, previously before the election, the goal had been for this movement to be taken nationally and legislatively. When it was announced that Trump won, I knew that if any legislation was brought to his desk as president, he would not sign it because it would be adding funding to public education. So we've had to shift. And so in shifting, now we are focusing more on how can we train and organize in our states and in our ed prep programs to advocate for this for ourselves and for the future student teachers.

(35:44):

So that's where the resource hub that I've been working on with my team is coming into this. And so we'll have that as an action center. I'll be hosting trainings virtual about how do we use this tool. How can we use this in our own locals, in our own states? At the upcoming Aspiring Educators conference, we'll be having trainings on that. How do you communicate with different decision-makers? And those might be legislative decision-makers, or maybe it's your College of Ed Dean. And so how do we talk to different people about paid student teaching or different issues that we have? Because really it comes down to having conversations. We have to talk about it. Unpaid student teaching is a barrier. It is unjust. Individuals should be compensated for their labor. This will diversify the profession. It is economical.

(36:35):

And so having those conversations on our campuses and in our states is really the next move to push for this as opposed to one big national push legislatively. So in the next two years, my goal is that our Aspiring Educators will have the tools and the confidence to advocate for themselves and their future student teachers in their programs in their areas to demand more than what we have been given so far.

Natieka (37:08):

Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Hannah. I hope that this inspires a lot of people to get active and organized so that student teachers can get the pay that they deserve.

Hannah (37:17):

Exactly. Thank you.

Natieka (37:19):

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