ELP Is a Solution for the Teaching Shortage Epidemic
The US public school teaching shortage has grown to epidemic proportions. Of the 98,577 public schools in the US (as of 2020-2021), 86% struggle to fill teaching positions and 45% report feeling understaffed.
Though we have 3.2 million public school teachers (as of 2020-2021), 55,000 positions are going unfilled while 270,000 are filled by underqualified people.
Not only do we need more teachers, we need to retain those teachers, too. With more than 50% of new teachers leaving the profession within four years, we cannot possibly solve this crisis by only focusing on bringing new people into the profession.
We need innovative ideas, and this is where ELP enters the picture.
In 2019, eight state affiliates of the National Education Association came together to solve new teacher turnover - an unprecedented alliance that grew into ELP. We created and then launched a two-year pilot program to keep new teachers in the profession, which both saves precious school resources and supports student learning.
At the end of the pilot, the majority of participating New Teachers, Virtual Instructional Coaches, In-Person Mentors, and school superintendents reported that it worked. And the Summative Assessment prepared by our partner, Digital Promise, found that ELP achieved all four of our key outcomes:
Help early career teachers feel effective sooner
Support their well-being and reduce their stress and isolation
Retain them in the profession
Ensure that their mentors and coaches also felt effective
For a deeper dive into the findings, follow this link.
Let’s look at the crisis in one state - Minnesota - and the impact ELP has had on new teacher retention in just two years.
The impact of ELP in Minnesota
Minnesota’s teaching shortage is aligned with the US average. The Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board surveyed school districts and 84% reported that they are moderately to severely affected by the teacher shortage. The substitute teacher shortage is worse at 89%.
Education Minnesota, the state’s teacher’s union, and the Minnesota Department of Education conducted a study and found that more than 20,000 people in Minnesota who are licensed to teach are not in the teaching profession.
At the end of the day, the students are the ones who bear the brunt of this crisis, especially those who need the most support. Title I schools and special education students suffer from the most acute teacher shortages.
But here’s the good news:
As a founding partner of ELP, Minnesota has seen firsthand the impact of our professional support model.
Melissa Del Rosario, an Education Issues Specialist at Education Minnesota who recruited New Teachers and experienced teachers to participate in ELP this year, shared some heartening statistics:
100% of New Teachers from Minnesota remained in teaching from year one to year two of the pilot program.
90% of New Teachers attributed their growth to their Virtual Instructional Coach.
85% of New Teachers reported they were happy with their choice to become a teacher.
And 97% of all ELP pilot participants stayed in the teaching profession.
Because Minnesota is a largely rural state, Melissa said they decided to focus their recruitment efforts for this school year on districts without a mentoring or coaching program already in place. “Smaller districts don’t have the resources to provide mentors,” she explained, “and every single New Teacher who is participating this year had zero opportunities to connect with a mentor or coach.”
We are scaling ELP to reach more teachers
With a successful pilot test behind us, we are moving towards a two-year beta test during which we will expand the program to reach 1,000 New Teachers (a big leap from 100 in the pilot), improve our support model and processes, and create a roadmap to scale and sustain the business model.
To do this, we need partners.
The eight state affiliates who formed ELP made historic investments in preparing for and piloting the program. However, they need more resources to effectively build out the capacity of the program.
We are looking for new partners who will bring their ideas to the table, help us improve the model, share their subject matter expertise, and bring more awareness about ELP to their communities.
We are also looking for donors as we raise $5 million for the beta test. The money will be used in two ways:
To pay stipends to participants
Fund the implementation of the model in its current configuration, which includes hosting workshops, providing online support and online tools, and conducting ongoing research to track how well the model is working.
All donations are tax-deductible; ELP is a 501(c)3 nonprofit created by the participating affiliates to lead and manage the implementation of this model and to raise funds to accomplish that.
Investing time and/or money does more than help solve the very specific and dramatic problem of teacher shortages. You will help improve public schools in other ways. The experienced teachers who served as coaches and mentors reported that their teaching practices also improved. With a direct correlation between teacher competency and student achievement, students will reap the rewards.
For potential partners with a racial/social justice mission, our model helps ALL New Teachers stay in the profession, including teachers of color.
In short, your investment will have ripple effects.
Join us!
If you are interested in helping us solve the epidemic of teacher shortages, we invite you to reach out for a conversation. We want to hear your perspectives and ideas and build relationships with those who share our values. Together, we can create sustainable change.