New America Explainer: Grow Your Own
An explainer video about Grow Your Own teacher recruitment and preparation strategies for school districts and states.
Grow Your Own Teachers
Resources, Research, Analysis, and Program Profiles
Grow Your Own (GYO) programs recruit and prepare local community members to enter the teaching profession and teach in their communities. States and districts across the country have implemented this model to increase access to the teaching profession, ease subject-area teacher shortages, and strengthen the teacher workforce.
Over the past eight years, New America has engaged in comprehensive research and analysis of GYO policies and provided direct support to programs across the country. We believe that GYO offers a compelling framework for how to improve teacher preparation for the benefit of the communities they serve.
Resources
Grow Your Own Educators: A Toolkit for Program Design and Development
A collection of user-friendly research, policy, and practice resources for Grow Your Own practitioners and policymakers.
Research Agenda: Grow Your Own Teachers
This research agenda can be used to better understand the impacts of GYO programs on students, teachers, and communities.
Research & Analysis
Grow Your Own Teachers: A 50-State Scan of Policies and Programs
This research presents the findings of a 50-state scan designed to identify programs and to investigate state policies that support GYO program.
Investing in Grow Your Own Teacher Programs: Leveraging State-Level Competitive Grants to Promote Quality
Recommendations for using statewide competitive grant programs to support Grow Your Own programs.
Essential Elements for High-Quality Grow Your Own Educator Programs
Research has identified five essential elements that undergird high-quality GYO programs.
What’s the Difference Between Grow Your Own, Teacher Residency, and Teacher Registered Apprenticeship?
As the number of teacher recruitment and preparation strategies grow there is a need for greater clarity on how they intersect and differ.
Why Grow Your Own Teachers is a Strategy Worth Sustaining
Grow Your Own programs center on the needs of candidates and local communities—an approach that could help transform teacher preparation.
Teacher Apprenticeship: What Is It and Why Now?
A closer look at Tennessee’s new K-12 teacher apprenticeship programs reveals strengths, potential challenges and lingering questions.
How Teacher Apprenticeship is Changing Teacher Preparation
Thirty states have adopted teacher registered apprenticeship, but how will this approach impact teacher preparation?
Leveraging Teacher Apprenticeship to Grow the ESL and Bilingual Teacher Workforce
Teacher apprenticeships are being implemented across the country, but what role can they play in preparing teachers of English learners?
Teacher Talent Untapped: Multilingual Paraprofessionals Speak About the Barriers to Entering the Profession
Multilingual paraprofessionals speak about the barriers to entering the teaching profession.
Multilingual Paraprofessionals: An Untapped Resource for Supporting American Pluralism
This introductory brief outlines what we know about multilingual paraprofessionals’ abilities, career trajectories, and obstacles to advancement in the U.S. education system.
Program Profiles
Kennedy Children’s Center Grows Its Own Special Education Teacher Workforce
This brief describes the development of the GYO training program at KCC and highlights key features and ongoing improvements.
Tennessee Bets on Grow Your Own Programs to Help Strengthen and Expand Its Teacher Workforce
Tennessee has leveraged federal recovery funds to launch a statewide grant program to support the development and expansion of GYO programs.
Grow Your Own Educators in Minnesota: State Supports and Local Programs
Minnesota community partnerships are implementing GYO programs to diversify the teacher workforce.
Mississippi’s Multifaceted Approach to Tackling Teacher Shortages
This report highlights impressive strategies states can use to address teacher shortages and improve teacher workforce diversity.
Developing a Bilingual Associate Degree Program for Spanish-Speaking Early Childhood Educators
This brief will explore the design process, key features, and supports offered to students in the program, with a look at how one local employer worked to help increase access to the program.
Chicago’s Bilingual Teacher Residency: A Partnership to Strengthen the Teacher Pipeline
This paper explores how Chicago Public Schools designed and implemented the program in partnership with National Louis University and the National Center for Teacher Residencies.
Grow Your Own IL – Supporting the Teachers Our Students and Schools Need
In the first blog of the series, Kate Van Winkle, executive director of GYO Illinois, explains the history of GYO IL and how the program has persisted in spite of large challenges.
Building a Bilingual Teacher Pipeline: Bilingual Teacher Fellows at Highline Public Schools
This is the first in a series of papers that examine innovative approaches to bilingual educator preparation.
Recruiting Washington Teachers Helps High School Students Explore Careers in Teaching
Washington state is aiming to grow the next generation of teachers by providing high school students with exposure to careers in education.
Building a Bilingual Teacher Pipeline: The Portland Public Schools and Portland State University Dual Language Teacher Partnership
This paper builds on recent research by the Dual Language Learners National Work Group on the role that “Grow Your Own” teacher preparation programs could play in easing the bilingual teacher shortage.
Cultivating Nebraska's Indigenous Roots to Grow American Indian Teachers
A teacher preparation program in Nebraska aims to develop more American Indian teachers.
Growing Our Own on Hawaii's Wai‘anae Coast
Sanoe Marfil describes the Kūlia & Ka Lama Education Academy, a grow-your-own teacher program on Hawaii’s Wai‘anae Coast