In his early career, our founder, Carlos Vazquez was able to leverage some training in New York that was very similar to what is available within a teacher apprenticeship.
So finally seeing these pathways opening up with financial support from both State and Federal programs as well as the attention that registered apprenticeships are finally getting as as solution to our nation’s talent gap and student debt crisis is music to his ears.
If you haven’t had a chance to read GoSprout’s Origin Story, Carlos details the role being selected for the New York City Teaching Fellows program played in launching his later career:
I came across this really selective New York City Teaching Fellows program with only an 8% acceptance rate, but someone liked my application.
So I was actually placed in a 5th grade classroom just blocks from Fordham, and I was able to get my Masters in Education from City College of New York as well.
The whole program really resonated with me emotionally. With the students, I was extremely proud that my 5th graders had the highest test scores on record.
But I had some opportunities in my second year to really start to drive initiatives within the program, and I really wanted to focus on providing equal opportunity to underrepresented individuals.
Basically, I could see how powerful this program could be for kids from groups in similar situations to my own childhood, and the program gave me room to help with my particular emphasis on science and technology, but we also had some really cool programs like a partnership with Visual Thinking Strategies, a non-profit that used the facilitated discussion of fine art to help students develop critical thinking skills.
I was really proud of what I accomplished with NYCTF and felt like I really found my path while I was in the program.
Teaching Apprenticeships Weren’t Available Back Then
Teaching apprenticeships have this magical quality. On the one hand, they allow the apprentice to enjoy all the benefits of registered apprenticeships.
And then on top of that, the local educational system gets deeper with someone who really wants to contribute.
But if you read Carlos’s interview, it becomes clear that so many opportunities that helped him become a tech CEO came together out of solid mix of hard work and luck.
DoL Recognizes Teaching as An Apprenticeable Profession in 2022
Yep. It took decades but now all of the government support for registered apprenticeships is available to development our nation’s teaching core.
The Kansas State Department of Education has felt the benefits. The local program abbreviated as “RTAP” was “developed with paraprofessionals, graduating high school seniors, and non-degreed staff in mind to address teacher vacancy issues. Apprentices who are selected by their districts are compensated for on-the-job learning with a structured wage scale while providing funding to alleviate the cost of earning a bachelor’s degree in education.”
Read the full article: Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Program (RTAP) aims to break down barriers to place more teachers in the classroom
A Teacher Apprenticeship Is a Structure That Can Be Used Anywhere
New America recently covered how these program are really taking off but at the same time, there’s a lot of work to be done:
In “Leveraging Teacher Apprenticeship to Grow the ESL and Bilingual Teacher Workforce,” Amaya Garcia writes:
Over the past two years, K-12 teacher apprenticeship programs have been registered in 34 states and Puerto Rico. While many of these programs are in early stages, this moment offers an opportunity to develop approaches that both address specific teacher workforce needs and that align with changing student demographics.
You know we love to see apprenticeships in Puerto Rico being covered and 34 states sounds great…but wait! That means 16 states don’t have a teacher apprenticeship program yet.
But they could and our work to make shareable content within the our apprenticeship tracking software makes it easier for employers and whoever is playing the mentor/journeyworker role to putting together amazing programs.
How Are Apprentices Reviewing Teacher Apprenticeship Programs?
Megan Alexander, a KSDE participant had the following to say: “The greatest reward is gaining the knowledge to better support students so they can be successful. My greatest challenge has been learning how to manage my time between work, school and home. It takes time and hard work, but if your dream is to become a teacher, then joining this program is a great choice.”
How Can GoSprout Help?
If you already have a teacher apprenticeship program or are thinking about launching one, GoSprout streamlines the whole process and makes compliance checks a breeze.
We’ve put together an cloud platform that unites apprentices with apprenticeship sponsors, employers, registered training provider schools, and more recently, we added the ability to support pre-apprenticeships (programs that start in high school/secondary education and feed RAPs associated with post-secondary education).
