Danielle Edwards

Illustration of people interacting with light bulb flowers on a plant.

"Grow Your Own" (GYO) programs were created to encourage members of local communities to become teachers: aiming to address shortages and increase diversity within the profession. Researchers offer new ways to measure the effectiveness of such programs: bit.ly/3IcXMwz.

“Grow Your Own” (GYO) programs have emerged as a new approach to expanding teacher supply, addressing localized shortages, and diversifying the profession. However, little is known about the scale and design of GYO programs, which recruit and support individuals from the local community to become teachers. We conduct a quantitative content analysis of 94 GYO initiatives and find that “GYO” is an umbrella term used to describe teacher pipeline programs with very different purposes, participants, and program features. Although nearly all GYO initiatives aim to increase local supply, far fewer offer programming aligned with reducing shortages in hard-to-staff subjects and schools, increasing diversity, and improving effectiveness. We propose a new classification scheme to facilitate more precise discussions of GYO programs.

My paper with @matthewakraft.com describing the variety of Grow Your Own teacher programs nationally is out in print in @erjournal-aera.bsky.social!

EdResearcher: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/...

Open Access: edworkingpapers.com/sites/defaul...

New from Jennifer Nelson, Marisol Jimenez, and me in AERA Open:

Hiring Under Constraint: How School Administrators Perceive and Respond to Centralized Screening by the District doi.org/10.1177/2332...

Open access!

Grow Your Own teacher programs: What are they, and what can (and can’t) they accomplish? Grow Your Own teacher programs can reduce teacher shortages, promote teacher diversity, and lead to improved teacher retention.

Want to know more? Check out our @brookings.edu blog post too!

www.brookings.edu/articles/gro...

Research Agenda: Grow Your Own Teachers This research agenda identifies key questions and data sources that can be used to uncover how GYO programs shape education, influence teacher outcomes, affect school and district performance, improve...

Future research: We need to know what types of GYO programs are effective at improving the many outcomes associated w/ them. I contributed to a research agenda that outlines possible research questions & data needed to evaluate GYOs
www.newamerica.org/education-po...

GYO program classification scheme

We propose a classification scheme that suggests that we should refer to GYO programs by their target population &/or programming. E.g. a GYO HS teaching scholarship, a GYO teacher residency, a GYO para cert program.

We conclude that GYO programs are macro category describing a diverse class of teacher pipeline programs rather than a specific recruitment strategy. We need more precise language to describe them to ensure we are talking about the same thing!

GYO program characteristics by high school vs adult program

While GYO programs have the potential to increase tchr diversity, reduce shortages, & improve tchr quality & retention, few GYO initiatives have program features aligned w/ these goals

GYO program characteristics by high school vs adult program

However, few high school GYO initiatives directly lead to or provide support towards certification. Over 90% of GYOs targets adults require participants to become certified w/ 70% offering financial assistance towards cert

Graph of GYO participant types. 60% high schoolers, 40% paras, 20% community members, 20% college students

The most common type of GYO program encourages high school students to become teachers through coursework, extracurricular activities or teaching scholarships

Other than that they don’t have much else in common. They vary widely in their other purposes, who they target for participation, & programming. We found 49 unique combinations of participant types & program features across 65 GYO programs!

We find that most GYO programs aim to expand teacher supply by recruiting individuals from the local community to become teachers. But…

Ecstatic that Grow Your Own: An Umbrella Term for Very Different Localized Teacher Pipeline Programs is out in Ed Researcher!

doi.org/10.3102/0013...

@matthewakraft.bsky.social & I explore how the term GYO is used, describe GYO program variation & examine alignment btwn GYO purposes & programming

To remedy this, we outline important research questions & the specific data we need to evaluate them. We hope GYO programs, district & prep program leaders, & funders use this research agenda to inform their data collection & evaluation efforts!

GYO programs are difficult to study. They’re small size, their effects take years to observe plus we need for connected data across institutions & a good comparison group to study them.

Research Agenda: Grow Your Own Teachers This research agenda identifies key questions and data sources that can be used to uncover how GYO programs shape education, influence teacher outcomes, affect school and district performance, improve...

Excited to share the @newamerica.org Grow Your Own (GYO) Teacher Research Agenda I co-authored w/ Amaya Garcia Brad Carl Conra Gist Jason Greenberg Motamedi Jenny Seelig & Roey Ahram!

We know little about the effectiveness of GYO programs. We need more research!

www.newamerica.org/education-po...

The Segregation Paradox in School Choice | REACH The mission of REACH is to provide objective, rigorous, and applicable research that informs and improves school choice policy design and implementation to increase opportunities and outcomes for disa...

🚨JUST RELEASED🚨

New @REACHCenterEd policy brief from me & Kaitlin Anderson. Paper published in AERA Open

reachcentered.org/publications...

We estimate the effects of interdistrict choice & charter schl enrollment on btwn & within district racial & economic segregation 1/12

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View the peer-reviewed paper here:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

12/12

Conclusion: choice is not good or bad. Choice is used by relatively disadv. Ss. There are positive fx of urban charters & interdist. choice on student achievement. Unregulated choice is just not a viable strategy for reducing segregation. 11/12

Policy Implication: Public sch choice, by itself, is unlikely to reduce sch segregation. Choice policies found to desegregate limit the influence of adv. families and reduce barriers to access 10/12

2) the reductions in between district seg. may be due to a pattern of trading up. Districts who gain & lose students through interdistrict choice may become more racially similar to disadvantaged districts that primarily lose students. 9/12

This implies: 1) the reasons why disadv. families use choice may differ by type. Charter sch families may have choose more accessible schs w/ Ss of similar backgrounds whereas interdistrict choosers may want to attend highly resourced schs 8/12

Reasons for these patterns: A higher pct of Ss who use choice are Black or econ. Dis. compared to resident Ss in the same dist. Charter sch Ss attend schs w/ more same race Ss while interdistrict users attend schs w/ more advantaged Ss 7/12

We find negative fx of charter sch enrollment on btn dist seg but they are too small to rule out null fx. Inter-district choice seems to reduce btn dist White-non-White seg, but only in regions with charters 6/12

However, in districts w/o charter schs, interdistrict choice does increase economic segregation. These increases may be due to how district’s assign choice students to schs. Choosers apply to the dist & dist picks the sch they attend 5/12

Charter school and inter-district choice effects on racial & economic segregation. Increases in charter school enrollment increase segregation. No statistically significant effect of interdistrict choice

We confirm prior findings that charter sch enrollment increases within dist racial & economic segregation. We find no AVERAGE fx of interdistrict enrollment on within dist seg. 4/12

percent of Michigan students attending a school outside their resident district or a charter school

We study interdistrict choice b/c of its direct potential to reduce btwn district seg. It lets students attend schs in other districts. In Michigan, over 10% of students use interdistrict choice. 3/12

While sch choice advocates argue that it can reduce sch segregation by reducing influence of residential seg., intradistrict & charter sch choice have limited power to affect btwn district seg., a pervasive form of segregation. 2/12

The Segregation Paradox in School Choice | REACH The mission of REACH is to provide objective, rigorous, and applicable research that informs and improves school choice policy design and implementation to increase opportunities and outcomes for disa...

🚨JUST RELEASED🚨

New @REACHCenterEd policy brief from me & Kaitlin Anderson. Paper published in AERA Open

reachcentered.org/publications...

We estimate the effects of interdistrict choice & charter schl enrollment on btwn & within district racial & economic segregation 1/12

Congrats, Matt! Well deserved.