Response to EdWeek: ‘Grow Your Own’ Teacher Programs Are Misguided

Back in June EdWeek posted this OpEd about the problem with Grow Your Own programs. It just came across my LinkedIn feed today. I was curious what the arugment was because I enjoy picking things apart, but this piece wasn’t it.

The argument is a personal opinion rather than a critical examination of the practice. (Which is fine for an OpEd, but I usually appreciate the way issues are critically examined in EdWeek and I was disappointed) The article states that the problem is that asking students to “sign” and “commit” to becoming a teacher is problematic because high school students don’t really know what they want to do in life and we shouldn’t be forcing them into anything. I don’t see the difference in grow your own form any other major-specific scholarship program. Should we cancel all of the STEM scholarships because students might decide to switch to creative writing?

As a profession, teaching does a poor job at advertising the benefits teachers regularly report. As such, we do a pretty poor job recruiting future teachers. Grow your own is definitely an opportunity, but at the end of the day its typically a scholarship program. If a student decides teaching is no longer for them, they lose the scholarship. That’s no different from other major-specific scholarships.

The article cites that grow your own tackles the teaching shortage strategically since the majority of teachers work where they grew up. However, this is not the whole story for many of these programs. Many grow your owns are situated in highly diverse districts, yet we know that teaching is 80% white women. Grow your own programs also seek to create a teaching population that mirrors the diversity of the student population. In a robust program, such as the one in Rockford Public Schools, there are also opportunities for teachers to earn master’s degrees and principal licensure, creating avenues for continued growth and leadership.

There are challenges with these programs to be critically considered, but not committing to teaching as a high school senior.

In my district students who complete the pathway program also do their clinical hours in the district, student teach in the district and then have priority in the district. It is this small piece that I take issue with: we never give our pre-service teachers the opportunity to see the larger system for what it is.

When I started my career I was hired in a suburban school that was pretty diverse and strongly impacted by white flight. There were a lot of serious leadership problems in the school and most of the union was in the math department. A lot of folks complained about everything all of the time and so it was easy to assume that everything was wrong.

After two years I got to work at the high school I had attended. At the time the school was the DisneyLand of teaching. Teachers and admin worked collaboratively while mantaining autonomy, and everyone in the building worked hard to protect each other. Yet, there were a buch of things that were exactly the same as at my previous position. The difference was how they were managed.

After another two years I landed my current role in a large, urban-emergent district. There is a history of some really toxic leadership, a segregation lawsuit and all of the usual issues in a large public institution. However, thanks to my previous experiences I had the capacity to sort out the difference between the system, the leadership and the school (because teachers can create problems too). I also had the capacity to recognize where my circle of influence existed. Once you find this, trying to tackle problems within the system feels like something you can actually do! It creates the freedom to accept what I cannot change, and give 150% to the things I can.

That is one of the barriers I believe Grow-Your-Own has to creating transformative teachers. I firmly believe that my wealth of experience in different districts is what allows me to apply my unique strengths and talents for the good of my community without letting the garbage that is just part of teaching in a US public school system get in the way.

There are constructive arguments and conversations we can have around grow your own. This contributer’s opinion is not it.