Author: admin

America’s Achievement Gap — Made, Not Born? What a Study of 30,000 Students Reveals About Lowered Expectations and Poorer-Quality Instruction for Kids of Color

Students of color consistently receive less challenging instruction and schoolwork than do their white and more affluent classmates, a new study has found, often leaving them unprepared for college even if they have received top grades.

The report used extensive surveying of students, who wore vibrating watches that prompted them to take surveys during class. Their responses suggest that the failure to challenge young people from low-income and minority families in middle and high school helps explain why the rise in high school graduation rates in recent years has not translated to better college outcomes.

“While many students do have barriers to overcome to succeed in school, some of the biggest barriers are created by decisions very much within our control,” said the advocacy nonprofit TNTP, which released its report, “The Opportunity Myth,” on Tuesday.

“As a field, we’ve covered up the racist, classist, and just plain unfair choices we’ve made by telling parents and students — particularly students of color — that they are doing fine, when all the evidence from their classroom work and their exam scores suggests that they are not,” the report says.

TNTP said it surveyed 30,000 students between grades 6 and 12, analyzed 20,000 student work samples, and observed 1,000 lessons in five school districts, primarily during the 2016-17 school year. It did not name the districts but described them as “rural and urban, district and charter.” It said charter “district” referred to a charter network.

Perhaps most strikingly, the report found that most students in these districts were typically given below-grade-level class assignments designed for students several years younger, often because teachers did not believe they could succeed at a higher level.

They completed the assignments successfully more than two-thirds of the time. With little opportunity to tackle appropriate material, however, they submitted work that met grade-level standards only 17 percent of the time.

TNPT said ability was not an obstacle. In classrooms with more grade-level work, students gained about two months of learning compared with their peers.

College readiness “a myth”

The report said more than 90 percent of students it surveyed in each district planned to go to college, a nearly identical figure across different groups. Adding a cri de coeur, it described remediation rates in four-year colleges for black students at 66 percent and Latinos at 53 percent as a broken promise made by a society that oversells the value of a high school diploma.

Students interviewed by TNTP believe that “showing up, doing the work, and meeting their teachers’ expectations will prepare them for what’s next,” the report says. “They believe that for good reason. We’ve been telling them so. Unfortunately, it’s a myth.”

TNTP determined that college struggles are rooted in inequities in four overlapping areas: middle and high school assignments that reflect grade-level standards; teaching that demands deep thinking; student engagement, described as a “cognitive and emotional investment” in schoolwork; and high expectations by teachers.

Racial differences cut across each of these. White students had a 65 percent success rate on grade-level work, while students of color had a 56 percent rate. But 4 out of 10 classrooms where students of color were the majority, or 40 percent, never received any grade-level assignments, compared with 12 percent of mostly white classrooms.

Teachers in mostly white and higher-income classrooms offered three and a half to five times as many of what TNTP called “strong instructional practices” that forced students to come up with answers rather than have them watch passively. Greater levels of engagement and expectations were also reported in classrooms with mostly white students.

The biggest variations in these areas were within, not across, districts, the report said.

Accomplished teaching and grade-level assignments were in short supply for everyone in the districts: TNTP calculated that students received strong instruction for just 29 of 180 hours over the course of a year in a core subject, and spent 133 of 280 hours on assignments that were inappropriate for their grades.

All students benefited from better practice, but students who started the year behind grade level made outsize gains, the report said. Access to stronger instruction and on-grade assignments added the equivalent of six and seven months of learning, respectively.

“The ‘achievement gap’ is not inevitable,” the report says. “It’s baked into a system where some students get more than others.”

Vibrating watch means it’s survey time

TNTP recommended that districts undertake “equity audits” of their schools, incorporate student experience into school decision-making, commit to diversity in hiring — the report finds that teachers have higher expectations of students of the same race — and make grade-appropriate assignments “an urgent priority for all students.”

While visiting participating schools at different times in the school year, TNTP surveyed students in grades 6 through 12 over the course of the day about their school activities.

“During the entire week of our second and third site visits, all students with parental consent were provided a vibrating watch and a survey at the beginning of class,” the report says. “At six points during class, a handful of watches would vibrate. When a student’s watch vibrated, it was his or her signal to complete the survey about their current activity and perceptions.”

It continued: “We could capture experiences throughout class instead of at one distinct point in time.”

As to the surprisingly variable quality of lessons in districts with strong standards — four of the five use the Common Core — TNTP’s CEO Daniel Weisberg said, “Just signing on to a set of standards or adopting a curriculum doesn’t ensure that students are receiving grade-level assignments.

“That’s why it’s so important for district leaders to do what we’ve done here: take a close look at what students are really experiencing day in and day out. If you don’t know exactly how much time students spend on work that’s aligned with the standards you’ve chosen, chances are you’re letting a lot of inconsistency and inequity slip through the cracks.”

Nashville sees spike in schools among Tennessee’s lowest performing; Joseph vows improvement

The number of Nashville schools on the Tennessee Department of Education’s list of the lowest performing in the state spiked over the last three years from 15 to 21.

In 2012, there were six schools on the list, and the new list indicates a worsening trend for the number of low performing schools in Nashville.

The state priority schools list represents the bottom 5 percent of schools based on standardized test results.

Because of testing issues last school year, those test results were not factored in. A school qualified for the list if it was in the bottom 5 percent in testing for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years, or if it failed to generate a graduation rate of at least 66 percent.

Metro Nashville Public Schools Director Shawn Joseph said any determination based on a single metric can be problematic, but his administration has identified the schools on the new list as needing improvement.

Joseph said that while there is a negative connotation attached to schools on the list, there is also a benefit. Landing on the list means extra resources, and his administration has identified an aggressive four-part plan to help move schools off the priority list.

Asked to predict how many of the 21 schools would remain on the state’s next priority list in three years, Joseph was unequivocal. “None,” he said.

The increase in priority schools offers another challenge for Joseph, who is navigating a school board that is bitterly divided over his job performance. In a 5-4 vote largely about his leadership, Sharon Gentry, who backs Joseph, was elected chair of the board.

“Under Dr. Joseph’s leadership we are going in the opposite direction of the district’s vision, which is to be the fastest improving urban school district in the nation,” said school board member Jill Speering, who has been critical of Joseph.

Nashville Mayor David Briley said the bump in priority schools indicates that thousands of students “are not getting the education they deserve, particularly low-income students and students of color. This is unacceptable.”

Briley said his vision is to be a city that supports all of its residents.

“As an immediate measure, we must learn from schools that are closing achievement gaps for students here in Nashville and share what is working with the rest of the district,” Briley said. “I will also be working with city leaders, school officials and the state to reach actionable conclusions and move swiftly to address these disparities.”

Metro Nashville Public Schools moves 4 schools off priority list

Nashville has demonstrated some success moving schools completely off the priority list. Four schools tabbed as priority schools in 2015 improved and are no longer on the list.

Two of the 15 schools from three years ago are now run by the state’s Achievement School District, one is operated by the charter school group KIPP, one was combined with another traditional public school, and another was converted to an early learning center.

“Priority school designation means that the schools are going to have more resources to really target the needs of the school to accelerate growth,” Joseph said in an interview with The Tennessean. “This is an opportunity for these schools and these teachers who have been working hard to really get the resources they need.

“With this priority designation, we’re optimistic our schools will get better faster,” he said. “They won’t get worse, and that’s a commitment.”

Landing on the priority list opens up the opportunity for extra state and federal funding. The most recent state budget allocated $10 million for grants to priority schools.

MNPS strategy for supporting priority schools

Joseph said his administration will zero in on four areas to improve schools: school leadership, effective instruction, growing talent, and student and family support systems.

The last area of emphasis includes partnering with community groups to address specific areas of need.

For example, Lisa Coons, executive director of MNPS’ Schools of Innovation, pointed to a community-based program to donate coats and clothes for needy students who were missing school on cold days. That program paid off, Coons said.

“We tailor the programs to the specific needs of the school,” Coons said.

The Nashville schools on the priority list typically have high percentages of poor students and students who are chronically absent. The schools also have lower percentages of students achieving the growth projection for literacy.

Warner Elementary, in East Nashville, has 88.11 percent of its 227 students meeting the economically disadvantaged designation and just 35 percent meeting the growth projections for literacy.

At two high schools on the list — Maplewood and Whites Creek — chronic absentee rates are at 42 percent. Chronic absenteeism is defined as missing more than 10 percent of the school days in a given year.

Joseph already got the ball rolling to aid troubled schools by shifting more federal Title I funds to schools with the highest percentages of poor students.

“Whether or not these schools were on a state list, they were on my list for schools that need to improve,” Joseph said.

2017-18 tests not factored

After problems with the 2017-18 TNReady tests, the legislature passed a law this year blocking the Education Department from using those results to put a school on the list.

Education Commissioner Candice McQueen said a school could be removed from the list, however, if it had positive results on the 2017-18 test.

Identifying schools in need of help and providing additional resources to them have been part of the state’s larger effort to make accountability a pillar of its education policy.

“We believe accountability is a key element that has contributed to student growth in Tennessee and has been a foundation to our improvements in the last several years,” McQueen said.

In addition to the priority list, the state also released its rewards school list, which shows the top performing schools in the state. The rewards list was determined using a new formula that calculated overall testing results, student improvement, ACT scores and graduation rates.

Nashville had 22 schools on that list. In addition to the 21 schools overseen by Metro Nashville Public Schools, two charter schools operated by LEAD Academy and overseen by the Achievement School District are on the state’s priority list.

The Nashville schools on the priority list of the bottom 5 percent in the state

Alex Green Elementary

Amqui Elementary

Antioch Middle

Bellshire Elementary

Caldwell Elementary

Cumberland Elementary

Gra-Mar Middle

Haynes Middle

Jere Baxter Middle

Joelton Middle

Madison Middle

Maplewood High

McMurray Middle

Moses McKissack Middle

Robert E. Lilliard Elementary

Rosebank Elementary

The Cohn Learning Center

Tom Joy Elementary

Warner Elementary

Whites Creek High

Wright Middle

Nashville must unite, bicker less, on public school challenges | Opinion

The conversations surrounding our city’s public school system are persistent, and at times emotionally charged.

The four of us wanted to take this moment to express that we are committed to working together in support of one another while ensuring Nashville becomes the highest achieving urban school district in the country.

This goal is ambitious. Some might find it unrealistic in light of certain metrics which are far from satisfactory.

For example, recently released data shows that MNPS is moving faster than the state and nation on third through eighth grade reading, but despite those gains, we are still far from where we want to be.

And, certainly the news on Friday that we now have six more schools on the state’s Priority Schools List(those performing in the bottom 5 percent in the state) — from 15 to 21 — is deeply disappointing.

We can – and must – do better.

Strong public-private partnerships are essential

While those headlines are deflating, we cannot settle for quick fixes where the performance is fleeting. There is too much at stake.

What we are seeking is a transformation of learning in every classroom in every school for the benefit of every student entrusted to us by their parents through a covenant we are not willing to compromise.

But we will only succeed if we find a way to bicker less and instead work together to equitably address historic challenges of underfunding of our public schools.

In the same way that we have come together around early literacy – resourced the need and forged strong public/private partnerships to fasten the pace of the work, we must now do that more broadly to accelerate progress in underperforming schools.

Results will not materialize overnight. But, much work is already underway, successes are revealed every day, and the groundwork is in place on many fronts for the reversal of results that are unsatisfactory by anyone’s standards.

This includes the extraordinary work by teachers and principals across the district who work tirelessly every day to help their students achieve their full potential.

Indeed, amidst the bad news we often read are stories of great success – schools and teachers getting terrific results for kids. We must learn more about those bright spots and help share and scale their lessons learned citywide.

We appreciate that no issue facing our city is the singular domain of one institution.

Rather, matters such as public education are a concern for the entire community.

Debating matters about how to improve our schools is productive, but only when it is grounded in mutual respect, and an appreciation for joint creativity.  When it comes to investing in the future of the City’s youth, we believe that our signing this guest column is an important signal to Nashville — a signal that we are prepared to be supportive of one another in pursuit of our schools being safe places where students flourish.

And, it is a signal that we all share a tremendous sense of urgency to accelerate improvement.

We love Nashville, and are committed to getting this right for our children. Our city has a long history of coming together in extraordinary ways for the good of the community. This is one of those moments when we must showcase the best Nashville has to offer and lean in, together, to do what’s right for students and families.

David Briley is the eighth mayor of Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County, Dr. Sharon Gentry is the chair of the MNPS Board of Education, Dr. Shawn Joseph is the superintendent of Metro Nashville Public Schools, and Jim Shulman is the recently elected vice mayor.

[Read more at The Tennessean]

Nashville schools asked to dedicate $432,000 for childhood trauma practices, reducing disciplinary issues

A state grant that funds Nashville public schools’ trauma-informed practices will end this year, threatening to stall work that has shown to reduce the need for discipline in the classroom.

Trauma-informed schools work to focus on the reducing the impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences, which can hurt brain development of children and cause behavioral issues.

With the grant ending, a group advocating for the practices in schools is asking Metro Nashville Public Schools to put local funds into the initiative — and increase the scope of the work overall.

ACE (All Children Excel) Nashville is asking Nashville public schools officials dedicate $432,000 toward the programs.

“We are grateful for the support by the district of trauma-informed schools, but we would love for the district to have some skin in the game and integrate (money) into their own budget,” said Kristen Rector, the president and CEO of Prevent Child Abuse Tennessee.

The district uses a $200,000 grant provided by Building Strong Brains Tennessee to fund trauma-informed practices in 10 schools. That is slated to end this year. The money goes toward a district and school coordinator.

ACE Nashville is asking the district to fund those two positions but also for increased funding to create four positions to help schools in the different areas of Nashville.

Trauma-informed practices are meant to help students feel safe and connected, which in turn increases their overall focus in the classroom. Classroom teachers, coaches and principals are on the front line of helping students through those issues, Rector said.

The increased support for students has helped almost every school see a reduction in office discipline referrals, helping keep kids in the classroom.

“It’s an often invisible issue,” said Kinika Young, Tennessee Justice Center children’s health director. “Teachers may have a problem child in a classroom but not really understand what is driving that behavior.

Young said nearly half of all U.S. children have experienced an adverse childhood experience, a quarter have experienced three or more and six percent have experienced more than four. Four or more is usually a tipping point, Young said.

“We think it is important to institute and provide that buffer for toxic stress and create safe and nurturing spaces,” Young said. “The impact is not restricted to those that are experiencing the stress. The other kids are experiencing the teacher struggle and trying to regulate their own behavior.”

Mary Crnobori, Nashville schools trauma-informed schools coordinator, said the work has seen strong results in reducing discipline cases overall at schools.

She said at Fall Hamilton Elementary School, which is the first school to take on the practices, has seen the most promising results, with a 97-percent reduction in discipline referrals.

“This work isn’t about just individual students who know trauma, it is in the interest of all students,” she said.

Nashville schools board Vice Chair Christiane Buggs said she believes funding the positions to continue trauma-informed schools is worth consideration, although noted that the district has many areas of need.

“It’s something that will give us exponential dividends in the end,” she said.

Reducing student discipline

Metro Nashville Public Schools uses a $200,000 Building Strong Brains grant to fund a trauma-informed coordinator and a school coordinator. The grant ends after this school year.

The 10 schools, along with their overall decrease in office discipline referrals, are:

• Fall-Hamilton Elementary — 97 percent reduction in year one and a 53 percent reduction in year two over the previous year.
• Eakin Elementary — 73 percent reduction.
• Waverly Belmont Elementary — 29 percent reduction.
• Napier Elementary — 15 percent reduction.
• Hermitage Elementary — 60 percent reduction.
• Inglewood Elementary — One percent reduction.
• Tulip Grove Elementary — 52 percent reduction.
• Meigs Magnet Middle Prep — 37 percent reduction.

Source: ACE Nashville

TNReady listening tour makes stop in Middle Tennessee

Educators from Middle Tennessee met with Gov. Bill Haslam and state Education Commissioner Candice McQueen to discuss the difficulties of TNReady testing last week.

The gathering was held at Freedom Middle School in Franklin and included educators from Nashville, the Franklin Special School District and Dickson, Maury, Hickman, Marshall, Rutherford, Williamson and Wilson counties. The participants were nominated by their superintendents.

A group of visitors were also in attendance which included House Speaker Beth Harwell, Republican Sens. Ferrell Haile of Gallatin, Jack Johnson of Franklin and Mark Pody of Lebanon, and Rep. Mike Sparks, R-Smyrna. The visitors were not permitted to engage in the discussion.

During the meeting, educators discussed access to technology and the online portion of the test, with half of the educators in attendance stating they would rather see paper-and-pencil versions of the exam.

All present during the meeting emphasized the need for both students and educators to approach the end-of-year examinations seriously and for the state to build trust with educators, parents and students.

The TNReady listening tour includes six stops statewide for district teachers and administrators, as well as school technology and assessment coordinators, to hold a dialogue on the recent issues with the annual standardized examination of the state’s students.

The first meeting at Halls Elementary School in Knoxville was met with criticism by a local school board member for being scheduled on a Friday afternoon. Haslam told journalists there that the timing wasn’t intended as a way to shut teachers out.

A report from the tour will be released by the department at the end of the month.

The information will be used in the state’s search for a new testing vendor. Bids for the contract are expected to go out in October. For the coming testing season, the state will remain with its current vendor, Questar.

In August, the board for Maury County Public Schools voted 10-1 to send a letter calling for the halt of TNReady testing.

The letter, penned by Maury County Public Schools Superintendent Chris Marczak, asks the state to end TNReady testing, requests schools be held harmless in the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVASS) and calls for the ACT to be made the standardized testing tool for high school juniors and seniors by the year 2020.

Marczak previously said the changes would allow students to spend their careers preparing for the betterment of their future and complement the district’s “Seven Keys to College and Career Readiness.” Launched in January 2016, the “Keys” initiative is intended to implement the community’s expectations for its students, collected in the months prior, into a measurable goal and standard.

The superintendent called the vote an answer to an ongoing rally cry in Maury County. The Maury County Education Association, which represents more than 450 local educators and employees in the school district of 12,800 students, supports the board’s decision.

In the past three years, the annual examinations for students in grades 3 through 12 have experienced major issues. The problems have resulted in a shutdown of testing and state legislators making last-minute deals to ensure the tests will not be held against students, teachers and public school districts.

In April, state education officials said they believed there was “a deliberate attack” on the TNReady testing system, halting the initial day of testing. In June, the state revealed that the issue instead originated with an unauthorized change made by the state’s vendor to its systems. The state also decided it would pay $2.5 million less to Questar, which holds a $30 million, two-year contract with the state. Despite the issues, both McQueen and Haslam have committed to the testing process.

Following deliberations, the Tennessee General Assembly decided that it will ensure students, teachers and districts are held harmless for this year’s TNReady results.

Despite the testing issues, the Tennessee Education Association says students are improving, with more graduating on time and prepared to attend college and enter the workplace.

In 2016, the state’s former testing vendor, Measurement Inc., experienced severe statewide problems resulting in its cancellation.

Responding to a similar protest from Shelby County Schools Director Dorsey Hopson and Metro Nashville Public Schools Director Shawn Joseph, McQueen said standardized testing was a state and federal requirement, following an ongoing stance to continue moving forward with the examinations.

“Statewide assessment is the critical backbone to ensuring we are all accountable for the success of every single student in our state,” she said.

According to the Associated Press, the state has already begun to take steps to prevent some of the same issues with testing this school year. One of the biggest changes is that only high school students in grades 9-12 and those taking science — which is in a field-testing, non-punitive stage — will take their assessments online.

Summer camp lifts reading skills for third straight year in Tennessee

Tennessee’s campaign to help its children read better is seeing encouraging results from investments in school-based summer camps for youngsters at risk of regressing during school breaks.

First-, second-, and third-graders who participated in the state’s Read to be Ready summer program showed gains in reading comprehension and accuracy skills for a third straight year, according to a report released Tuesday by the state Education Department.

And the last two summers generated statistically significant improvements in those skills, based on assessments given in the early and last days of the camps.

This summer, more than 7,700 children took part in 250 reading camps across the state. The free programs provided four hours daily of literacy-based enrichment activities for four weeks and matched every five youngsters with one teacher. High-quality books, field trips, and teacher trainings were part of the mix.

Education Commissioner Candice McQueen called the impact “powerful” in building basic learning skills, especially for children from low-income families who are most likely to experience summer slide and fall academically behind their more affluent peers.

But Tennessee has a long way to go to reach its goal of having at least 75 percent of third-graders reading on grade level by 2025. Despite an encouraging uptick on the most recent state tests, only 37 percent of third-graders scored proficient in reading. And on national test results released this spring, fourth-graders’ reading performance remained mostly flat compared to 2013, when scores spiked for both reading and math.

Tennessee declared war on its reading problem in 2016, as McQueen joined Gov. Bill Haslam and his literacy-minded first lady, Chrissy, to launch Read to be Ready. The initiative’s centerpiece is the development of a cadre of literacy coaches to improve educator expertise.

The campaign also piloted a dozen camps that first summer with a $1 million gift from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. The results were promising enough to expand the program last year with $30 million allotted over three years from the state Department of Human Services.

School districts host their own camps using state grants awarded based on their applications. This year, more than three-fourths of Tennessee’s 147 school systems took advantage of the funding.

Those districts sent teachers who staff their camps to state trainings on literacy instruction. While the first two summers focused on integrating authentic reading and texts into the camps, this year’s trainings prioritized writing skills and increasing student interest and stamina for the written word.

The grants also provided each student with an average of 25 books for their home library this summer — sending more than 193,000 books home in all.

You can read the state’s full report here.

Does Teacher Diversity Matter in Student Learning?

Research shows that students, especially boys, benefit when teachers share their race or gender. Yet most teachers are white women.

Esther Cepeda: More minorities, females are entering STEM-career pipeline

Hearing Looks at On-the-Job Training to Bridge Skills Gap

More than 6 million jobs are going unfilled in the U.S. as employers struggle to find applicants who can do the work. Forty-six percent of U.S. employers say they can’t find workers with the skills they need, according to a recent Manpower survey.

A congressional subcommittee hearing Wednesday examined how the 2014 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) supports work-based learning—including apprenticeships—to bridge what has been called the most acute talent shortage since 2006.

During the hearing, “On-the-Job: Rebuilding the Workforce Through Apprenticeships,”committee members quizzed workforce experts on their experiences with the WIOA, apprenticeships and other employer-based, on-the-job learning programs.

Wisconsin has a 2.9 percent unemployment rate. While that is great news for the state, it poses a challenge for companies trying to fill positions, said B.J. Dernbach, assistant deputy secretary at the state’s Department of Workforce Development. He was among experts appearing before the subcommittee.

“It is imperative we find enough qualified workers to meet the needs of our employers,” he said.

The state’s registered apprenticeship program, he said, is “one of the most effective tools in our toolbox to help get people into careers and get them a lifelong credential.” The program has nearly 11,000 registered apprentices with 2,500 employers such as Footlocker and the Frank Lloyd Wright organic farmstead.

Someone completing an apprenticeship program in Wisconsin earns an annual median salary of $71,624, according to Dernbach. Two years after completing training, 98 percent of workers who completed the program were still employed in the same occupation, and 94 percent remained in Wisconsin, he told committee members.

One strategy the state uses to entice employers to use apprentices is to offer a discount on worker’s compensation premiums if the employer hires through the state’s Bureau of Apprenticeship Standards, Dernbach noted in formal testimony. Wisconsin also targets other populations, such as veterans transitioning into the private sector, and partners with the Department of Corrections to offer inmates an opportunity to earn credentials for computer numerical control coursework.

A two-week, intensive boot camp through the Shenandoah Valley Workforce Development Board (SVWDB) in Virginia has been successful in getting recent high-school graduates into the pipeline for manufacturing production jobs, said Sharon Johnson, the board’s chief executive officer.

The aim of the preapprenticeship model is to increase the availability of production operators and improve the retention of those new employees, she said. Employers have hired eight participants from the pilot program who then registered for the industrial-manufacturing technician apprenticeship program.

The SVWDB also supports a preapprenticeship model in manufacturing for people with disabilities. The Hershey Co. has placed 53 of those apprentices in industrial-manufacturing technician jobs.

Employers looking to build a pipeline of potential employees with the skills they need must start early—reaching students before high school—in promoting on-the-job training opportunities, many of the experts told committee members. Wisconsin established a pilot program to expand youth apprenticeships for students in middle school through grade 10. Youth apprenticeships allow students to earn credits toward registered apprentice programs. Sometimes credits in those programs earned in high school also can be applied to a college degree.

But students have to be informed about opportunities for in-demand, good-paying jobs and how to prepare for them, Dernbach said.

One way to do that is by educating high-school guidance counselors and breaking down the perception that apprenticeships are for jobs that are “dumb, dirty and dangerous,” he said.

The Hartford, the Connecticut-based property and casualty insurance firm, for example, plans to bring 200 apprentices on board by 2020. And Dernbach pointed to the information technology help-desk apprenticeship program at Footlocker.com/Eastbay headquarters in Wausau, Wis., as an example of how apprenticeship programs have extended into other industries.

The Wisconsin workforce board gives labor market information to guidance counselors on the hot jobs in a given area, Dernbach said.

“We can pull up a heat map on Wisconsin’s economy” and show them “these are the wages, these are the jobs and here’s the pipeline on how [students can] get there,” he said.

However, the same solution for finding qualified job candidates does not fit every business or every job a business has, Johnson said. It’s important for employers to customize their approach.

Businesses can connect with potential trainees who are still in school by offering industry tours, mentoring and going into the classroom to talk about their industries, available occupations and how to train for those jobs.

Youth who are out of school and working—and others who are unemployed or underemployed—must be reached differently. A best practice, Johnson noted, is for employers to partner with organizations with a history of working with that population. She also advised employers to go out into their communities.

“If you meet [potential trainees] at the McDonald’s or at Walmart or the library or the church,” she said, “you have a better opportunity” to reach them.

Walsh: Teacher Residencies Are Fine. But Districts Already Have the Power to Fix the Student Teacher Pipeline — at Far Lower Cost

A growing number of school districts are embracing the teacher residency model as a solution to their shortage of educators. For those districts with the financial resources or access to stable philanthropic support necessary to offset the high cost of this model, the investment yields real benefits: Residents tend to be more diverse and more likely to persist in the profession than the teaching force as a whole.

The appeal of the residency model and the broad support it enjoys are understandable. Placing a teacher candidate in a classroom for a full year under the tutelage of a top-notch mentor is a great way to train someone. Writing recently for The 74, Ashley LiBetti shared one in a long line of proposals to strengthen the supply of new teachers by expanding residency programs. While traditional teacher preparation programs fail to supply sufficient numbers of effective teachers in high-demand certification areas, she argued, the district-led nature of a residency program gives school leaders the power to decide whom to prepare and how to prepare them. If a district needs a physics teacher who is familiar with restorative justice practices, it can just make its own.

Unfortunately, this approach has something in common with buying a new coat instead of replacing a torn lining — and plays into our tendency to assume that higher prices equate to higher quality.

With an average sticker price of $65,000 per resident teacher, the residency model is an impractical solution to the many challenges of the labor market. Clearly, residency programs can help some districts avoid staffing shortfalls, but there are problems with casting them as the best opportunity districts have to shape and redirect the talent pipeline. This framing feeds into the pervasive mindset that districts lack the power to address the many issues with student teaching — which couldn’t be further from the truth. A more readily available, scalable, and affordable option is already available: fixing the pipeline of prospective teachers who enter through student teaching.

Indeed, while student teaching is fundamentally broken in most institutions, it is eminently fixable, and at a fraction of the cost of most residency programs.

Districts can exercise market power with traditional preparation programs, just as they do with residencies. The fact that they historically have not done so is the obstacle that must be overcome. There is nothing stopping a district from taking an active role in selecting the student teachers it hosts, just as it might do with a resident teacher. Districts should screen prospective student teachers for fit and commitment to pursuing a career in their schools (an essential step, as 50 percent of all candidates do not end up taking a teaching job upon graduation).

Instead of just asking for teachers to volunteer to mentor a student teacher, districts could ensure that every student teacher has a high-quality mentor by providing modest compensation to mentors and elevating their status. If districts want new teachers to be culturally competent, they need to commit to placing student teachers with mentors who will model such competence. Great teachers would be happy to accept student teachers if they had some assurance of the quality of the student teacher. Under the current system, who can blame a teacher for turning down the opportunity?

These changes in attitude and process have the power to almost immediately solve the chronic misalignment of teacher supply and demand. There would be no quicker way to persuade teacher prep programs to stop overproducing and underpreparing elementary educators than for districts to begin limiting the number of elementary student teachers they’re willing to accept.

Ultimately, a strong student teaching program can accomplish many of the same outcomes as a high-quality residency program — but on a much larger scale. Traditional teacher preparation programs graduate more than 150,000 teachers per year, while residencies produce a tiny fraction of this number. The National Center for Teacher Residencies, which represents a network of 28 of the largest teacher residency programs in operation, reports total annual enrollment only in the hundreds.

School districts rarely encounter a challenge for which the solution is so obstacle-free and low-cost. All that is required to build a better teacher pipeline is the will and resolve on the part of the district to assert its needs. By applying the lessons of residency programs to student teaching, districts can achieve change that is both broad and deep, not just tinkering around the edges.

Kate Walsh is president of the National Council on Teacher Quality.