REBROADCAST: The Teacher Pipeline: Creating Enduring Pathways Into Teaching

Supported by William Penn Foundation

Lisa R. Roy, Ed.D., of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, kicked off of our special four-part series, “The Teacher Pipeline: Creating Enduring Pathways Into Teaching.” Stephanie Waller of the William Penn Foundation opened the session with framing remarks about this series. She shared that addressing post-pandemic gaps requires us to “think of this pipeline at the individual teacher level as well as the policy and system focused supports [needed] to ensure aspiring and current teachers are supported at every part of their experience in the field — ultimately, because that’s what all of our students deserve.”

The panel began by examining how we invite talent into the profession, moving away from isolated recruitment toward community-rooted strategies. Ginny Johnson of TNTP shared how place-based recruitment in urban and rural centers turns community members into leaders. She noted that “when teachers see themselves as community leaders and not just service providers passing through, they stay longer and they invest differently in their work and in their communities.” Grounding this in practice, Cindy Young, Ed.S., of the University of Tennessee Southern highlighted the success of para-to-teacher models. She stated, “There are people out there who want to be teachers. We just have to find them and remove all the barriers that are keeping them back from becoming a teacher.”

To prevent “leaks” in the pipeline during the transition from entry to licensure, the panel explored the necessity of wraparound supports and policy guardrails. Young detailed her program’s competency-based curriculum and supportive services, such as book rooms and flexible schedules. Hannah Putman of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) discussed the role of curriculum and student teaching experiences. She shared that only about 1 in 4 programs nationally effectively teach the five core components of science-based reading instruction, and “research shows that when somebody student teaches with a…highly effective cooperating teacher, they go into their first year in the classroom as effective as a second- or third-year teacher.”

The conversation shifted to keeping high-impact teachers in the classroom through inclusive environments and strategic staffing. Johnson reminded the audience that “retention is most effective when it starts with recruitment and preparation — not when somebody is in the classroom and we’re really working hard to retain them in the profession.” Putman identified paying teachers more to work in hard-to-staff schools as a straightforward, research-backed strategy, though only about half of large districts currently use it. Conversely, she argued against pay increases for master’s degrees, stating research shows they generally do not improve effectiveness. Ultimately, Scott Gaiber of Elevate215 challenged the field to move beyond incremental changes, saying “we really have to fundamentally change conditions in schools. We can’t just tinker on the margins. It’s just not working anymore.”

See the three additional sessions in this series: April, May, and June.