Ensuring Equity in Grow-Your-Own Programs

Created by partnerships of educator preparation programs, school districts, and community-based organizations, grow-your-own programs recruit, prepare, and place community members as teachers. They typically recruit and prepare high school students, school classified staff (e.g., paraeducators, afterschool workers, bus drivers), career changers, and leaders and activists from local schools and geographic communities. To address the shortage, preparation, and retention challenges facing the profession, it is critical to ensure equity across the teacher development continuum. Adopting state-level equity criteria for grow-your-own programs is one policy lever toward this end. The criteria should address four equity areas: structural, disciplinary, cultural, and interpersonal. These areas provide lenses for exploring how state education policymakers can understand, confront, and overcome barriers community Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers (TOCIT) may experience when attempting to enter the educator workforce.