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Wisconsin Rises to (Staffing) Challenges

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

As Wisconsin teachers retire or leave the profession for other reasons, the number of people coming into teaching has not been keeping up. In fact, between the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years, Wisconsin issued 1,605 fewer teacher licenses for new teachers in the public educational system than teachers who left, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Despite some discouraging trends, or maybe because of them, bright spots in teacher training are popping up all over Wisconsin. Here are two of them.

Building a High-School-to-Teacher-Prep Program Pipeline Collaborative. “In true collaborative spirit, many partners are addressing the rural teacher shortage in Wisconsin," says Leah Luke, Mauston High School Spanish Teacher and Program Coordinator Teach to INSPIRE to Teach.

Dr. Stacey Skoning
Dr. Stacey Skoning, Chair, Department of Special and Early
Childhood Education at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh
and an original member of the Pipeline design team

Only two years ago, representatives from Mauston school district, Adams-Friendship, the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction began looking at ways to address the problem. The result was a program that uses a “career and technical student organization”-modeled Educators Rising as a starting point in both Mauston and Adams-Friendship to encourage students aspiring to teach. The program features dual enrollment courses supported by UW-Oshkosh and provides tutoring experiences. It also introduces students to lesson planning, instructional strategies, and assessment and offers tours of the UW-Oshkosh teacher preparation program.

"I am absolutely amazed by how this project has grown in such a short amount of time!” says Luke. “Mauston and Adams-Friendship have expanded their partnerships with other schools and universities. UW-Oshkosh's College of Education has extended its dual-credit offerings into 11 different high schools.”

Educators Rising has gone from three chapters statewide in 2016 to 42 chapters today. Individual students from 30 different high schools, which have not yet established home clubs, have joined the state-level organization.

Teach Ag Campaign. The Wisconsin Association of Agricultural Educators (WAAE) has also seen the need to encourage students who think they might like to teach. WAAE has a Teach Ag Campaign, holding a Teach Ag workshop in conjunction with the Wisconsin Association of FFA’s convention every June for the past six years.

Student signs with parents
Ag student Marissa Haugen is joined by her teachers Tari Costello (left) and Kris Beaver.

A Teach Ag signing day debuted at the 2018 State FFA convention. Twelve students signed an agreement with either the University of Wisconsin-Platteville or the University of Wisconsin-River Falls to enter college as agriculture education majors. Each student was presented on stage and parents, grandparents, and agriculture teachers joined them in the signing ceremony. To sweeten the deal, students received Teach Ag swag from the university they signed with. To learn more about the campaign, go to National Association of Agricultural Educators Teach Ag program.

These approaches can be adapted for other student organizations, districts, schools, and universities. The good news is that they are being adapted, in Nekoosa and Baraboo, Racine and Milwaukee. We encourage all to keep telling the great stories about being an educator.

Tell us what’s happening in your district. Send us your story about career and technical education!

—Submitted by Jeff Hicken, Agriculture, Food and Natural Resource Education Consultant/State FFA Advisor, Career and Technical Education, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction