Teacher academies face pipeline gaps |
High school teacher academies can strengthen local educator pipelines, but a Texas study found that gaps in college enrollment and completion limit their ability to diversify the teaching workforce. Researchers tracked more than 1.5m students, including nearly 70,000 who completed at least one high school education course, and found participants were four times as likely as their peers to become teachers, although fewer than one in 10 ultimately entered the profession. White participants were more than twice as likely to become teachers as Black or Hispanic participants, at 13.3%, compared with 4.9% and 5.5%, respectively, while nearly 70% of Black and Hispanic participants never enrolled in four-year public colleges. Researchers recommend stronger links with higher education, financial support, earlier classroom experience, and incentives to return to local districts. Teachers who had taken high school education courses also showed stronger retention, with fewer than one in five leaving within three years, compared with more than 30% of other teachers.
