UW-Madison unveils loan forgiveness program to keep teachers in Wisconsin
Click here for updates on this story
MADISON, Wis. (Wisconsin State Journal) — Sierrena Taylor-Seals expected to take out thousands of dollars in student loans to earn her education degree from UW-Madison.
She recently learned, however, that the university’s School of Education will foot her tuition bill as long as she teaches in a Wisconsin school for her first few years after graduation.
“I was just super excited and super grateful,” she said of the email that landed in her inbox a few weeks ago.
A new program announced on Tuesday aims to address a host of problems contributing to Wisconsin’s teacher shortage: declining enrollment in teacher education programs, high turnover among early-career educators, too few teachers of color in the classroom and chronic gaps in hard-to-fill subjects or geographic areas.
Known as the “Teacher Pledge” and funded entirely by private donors, the program forgives some or all of students’ loans after they teach in a Wisconsin school for four years. Those working in what the state Department of Public Instruction defines as a high-need district or subject area fulfill their obligation in three years.
The initiative covers the cost of in-state tuition, fees and testing certification. For Wisconsin residents, that essentially translates to a full-tuition scholarship. Out-of-state students still need to cover the difference in tuition rate.
Undergraduates complete their teacher education in their junior and senior years on campus, so they’re potentially still on the hook financially for their first two years of schooling, depending on what other scholarships and financial aid are available. For those seeking master’s degrees, like Taylor-Seals, the Teacher Pledge covers the in-state tuition rate of the entire program.
The program can also cover additional costs, such as books or living expenses, for students with more financial need.
There are many teacher loan forgiveness programs across the country, but most others apply to specific programs or student groups.
“We think this is the only program of its kind in the United States,” School of Education Dean Diana Hess said in an interview.
Between 2015 and 2019, nearly 60% of the school’s teacher education graduates went on to teach in a Wisconsin school, she said.
Hess hopes the Teacher Pledge pushes this percentage up and potentially becomes a model for other universities or states. She also aims for the program to recruit more diverse students to enter the teacher workforce.
A report published over the summer by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum found that the gap between the state’s increasingly diverse student body and the overwhelmingly white teacher base has widened over the past decade. Black and Hispanic students respectively made up 9% and 12% of Wisconsin’s K-12 student population in 2019, but only about 2% of teachers last year were Black and just under 2% of teachers were Hispanic.
Taylor-Seals, who is Black, grew up in Milwaukee and attended a high school on the city’s north side that serves mostly students of color. She remembers the school struggling to find science teachers.
“I noticed a lot of inequities between my school and others in Milwaukee,” she said. “I didn’t understand why. I wanted to do something about it and wanted it to be more fair.”
Education policy courses during Taylor-Seals’ time as an undergraduate at UW-Madison piqued her interest in pursuing teaching. She graduated with an English literature degree this spring.
After Taylor-Seals earns her master’s teacher certification next summer, she plans to teach English at a Milwaukee high school.
A severe shortage
One way to measure the extent of the staffing crisis is to look at the number of teachers working in classrooms who are not professionally trained for their position. Across the state in the 2018-19 school year, nearly 3,000 of emergency teaching licenses were issued, up from just over a 1,000 licenses in 2012-13.
The most serious shortage, Hess said, is in special education, although science and bilingual teachers are also in high demand. Geographically, Milwaukee remains a hard-to-recruit area, but rural districts also face challenges.
Hess worries the COVID-19 pandemic may exacerbate the problem even more. She spoke to a superintendent last week whose district includes many teachers eligible for retirement. The learning landscape right now, with instructors concerned about teaching face-to-face and also struggling to adapt to an online teaching model, may push out some from this age group a few years before they had planned to leave the classroom.
Key to the Teacher Pledge’s approach is incentivizing educators early in their careers to stay on the job for at least three or four years. The profession historically includes many who leave after just a year or two.
Reducing students’ debt load also alleviates some of the financial stress facing early-career teachers, most of whom draw small starting salaries.
“One of the things we want to do here is literally improve the standard of living for teachers,” Hess said.
Education professor Nick Hillman, who runs a research lab on campus studying college access and affordability, will lead an examination of the Teacher Pledge program, which is expected to support more than 1,500 students over the next five years.
The $18 million secured to fund Teacher Pledge is part of a broader $40 million donor initiative leading up to 2030, when the school marks its centennial celebration. The initiative known as “Impact 2030” also includes increasing other student scholarships and starting a new faculty fellowship program.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
