The $18 Billion Challenge: A Call for Change

The K-12 professional development market is a staggering . Yet, despite this massive investment, districts continue to grapple with teacher shortages, burnout and a disconnect between professional learning and classroom impact. Research paints a concerning picture:

• °¿²Ô±ô²âÌý are highly satisfied with current PD offerings.
• ±·±ð²¹°ù±ô²âÌý leave the profession within their first five years.
• Traditional PD  on student achievement.

It’s clear: There needs to be a paradigm shift in how we approach educator growth.

Outcomes-Driven, Research-Backed Professional Development

Imagine a world where every educator feels valued, supported and excited about their professional growth. A world where teacher retention isn’t just a goal, but a reality. This vision is within reach and the key lies in reimagining PD as something that can be tailored toward your goal outcomes. It’s possible at ·¬ÇÑÊÓƵ (ACE).

How ACE Helps You Reach Your Desired Outcomes

1. Personalized learning:  that personalized learning opportunities is a big factor in raising teacher satisfaction and improving teacher effectiveness. ACE creates tailored pathways, meeting educators exactly where they are in their careers and helping districts move toward specific goals. To make the learning as accessible as possible, coursework is designed to be flexible and online so it can fit into busy schedules.

2. Credit-bearing programs: Teachers want PD that’s meaningful. A report from the  found that credit-bearing PD increased teacher retention and efficacy. From graduate courses and certificates that can count towards advanced degrees to micro-credentials that stack toward larger qualifications, ACE gives teachers an opportunity to leverage their PD toward something bigger if they so choose.

3. Alignment with district goals:  that for districts to systemically improve their student outcomes, district goals must align with their PD. When ACE partners with a school district to offer PD, the partnership is a collaboration, where both sides ensure the proposed solutions align with district objectives and meet the unique needs of their community.

Case Study: Improving College Readiness

Let’s dive deeper into how the ACE professional development helps schools achieve their goal outcomes.

Imagine a high school English teacher, Sarah, who wants to enhance her expertise in integrated science and make a bigger impact on her students. Sarah’s school predominately serves low-income populations. Her school also has a goal of boosting their students’ college readiness.

For Sarah and her school, ACE’s Certificate in Content Area Instruction is a great solution on a variety of levels. First, research has shown that the type of content-specific PD this certificate offers can significantly improve student achievement, able to increase it by .

Next, the certificate will satisfy the development that Sarah is looking for:

• Sarah will be able to personalize her learning by choosing courses specifically focused on the key elements necessary to upskill and enhance her teaching, applicable to her school and students’ needs.
• Because the certificate is credit-bearing, Sarah will also accumulate 18 graduate-level credits. This not only could advance her on the salary scale, but these credits also count towards a future master’s degree if she decides she wants to deepen her expertise.
• Overall, Sarah will walk away with more skills and strategies for how to better teacher integrated science to her students, helping her make a bigger impact in her student’s education.

Finally, the certificate will contribute toward her school’s goal of boosting college readiness:

• With her 18 credit hours, Sarah could be eligible to teach dual enrollment courses, which would allow her students to earn college credits while still in high school. Her enhanced knowledge of the subject matter will also help her develop more challenging, college-level content for her students.
• Many states have specific regulations about the number of credit hours required for dual enrollment programs. The 18-credit hour structure of ACE’s certificate aligns well with common state requirements.
• State regulations often emphasize making dual enrollment opportunities available to all students, including those from underrepresented groups. Schools with high percentages of low-income students can use Title I funds to support dual enrollment programs.

The ACE Effect: Achieving Your Organizational Goals

When districts partner with ACE to create solutions targeted toward their desired outcomes, they experience what we like to call the ACE effect. For Sarah and her school, the ACE effect they experienced by having Sarah complete the ACE’s Certificate in Content Area Instruction involved:

• Teacher growth: Sarah gained deep, subject-specific knowledge, reinvigorating her passion for teaching and improving her instructional strategies.
• Student benefits: Sarah’s students, including those from low-income backgrounds, engaged with more challenging, college-level material, better preparing them for higher education.
• District advantages: Sarah’s school can now offer dual enrollment courses, attracting high-achieving students, potentially improving district rankings and providing valuable opportunities to underserved populations.

Cost-effectiveness: With certificate tuition being $4,230, the district invested far less than traditional professional development programs while gaining a more qualified teacher and expanded course offerings. If the district was able to make use of Title I funds, the cost could have been even lower.

The ROI of an ACE Partnership

When districts invest in educators through ACE, they’re investing in research-backed results:

1. Improved teacher effectiveness: Credit-bearing PD  with enhanced classroom practices and student performance.
2. Better student outcomes: High-quality teacher PD can boost student achievement by .
3. Increased retention: Teachers who receive ongoing, high-quality PD are  more likely to stay in the profession.

Strategic alignment: Aligned PD initiatives  to more coherent and effective school improvement efforts.

• Culture of continuous improvement: Schools with strong professional learning communities see  in student achievement over time.

This goes beyond traditional professional development. It’s about creating a culture of continuous improvement where educators are excited about their growth and its impact on students. By staying at the forefront of educational research and innovation, ACE helps educators implement best practices in their classrooms every day.

Transform Your District’s Future With Transformative PD

It’s time for K-12 leaders to critically evaluate their PD strategies. Are your current approaches truly meeting the needs of your educators and district? Are they creating an environment where teachers feel valued and excited about their growth?

The future of education is in our hands. Let’s build it together, one empowered educator at a time. Because when we invest in our teachers through personalized, credit-bearing and strategically aligned pathways, we invest in our students, our communities and our future.

Ready to experience the evidence-based impact of ACE’s education solutions in your district? Let’s start the conversation about transforming your professional development approach by emailing edsolutions@ace.edu.

We can’t underestimate the consequences of a depleted teacher workforce. 

The scale and implications of this impending crisis can’t be overstated. Current estimates from the Learning Policy Institute¹ indicate an annual teacher shortage of over 300,000 by 2025 if current trends persist. This presents an alarming picture that transcends individual classrooms and schools, indicating a significant impact on the entire educational landscape and, by extension, our nation’s future. 

Imagine a classroom brimming with forty, fifty or even sixty students – a stark contrast to the once standard size of around twenty. This is one of the most palpable repercussions of a depleted teacher workforce: overcrowded classrooms. With each desk filled and students spilling over into makeshift seating arrangements, the classroom becomes an echo chamber of simultaneous questions, conversations and distractions. The teacher, an island in this sea of young minds, tries to maintain order all while attempting to deliver a lesson that meets each student’s individual learning needs. 

The role of a teacher in such an environment shifts from being a facilitator of personalized learning to a manager of large groups, aiming to maintain a robust educational environment. The quality of education inevitably suffers. Individualized attention, a cornerstone of effective teaching, becomes a rarity. Students who struggle to grasp concepts may be left behind, their difficulties unnoticed or unaddressed in the teacher’s challenge to keep the class moving forward. Advanced learners, too, may find their progress stunted and their thirst for deeper understanding unquenched due to lack of time and resources. The compromises made within the classroom walls echo into students’ academic outcomes and their readiness to compete in a globalized world where high-level skills and knowledge are increasingly important. 

This bleak picture is further darkened by the impact on teachers themselves. Managing oversized classrooms, struggling to maintain education quality and coping with the constant stress of trying to do more with less, teachers become vulnerable to burnout. Exhaustion, frustration and a sense of helplessness may drive some of the most passionate educators out of the profession, exacerbating the very shortage they were enlisted to combat. It’s a vicious cycle with teachers and students trapped in its whirl. 

As the education sector grapples with this impending crisis, the question becomes urgent and vital: How can we ensure a robust pipeline of qualified, committed teachers for the future? How do we prevent a crumbling educational landscape from becoming our reality? To navigate this challenge, we must look beyond temporary measures and devise sustainable, systemic strategies. The future of our students, teachers and indeed our nation’s socio-economic fabric depends on it. 

Current solutions are met with limitations.

Various attempts to resolve the teacher shortage crisis have largely focused on financial incentives, chiefly through salary increases. However, this approach is both unsustainable and, more importantly, fails to address the root cause of the issue. It’s like treating the symptoms without addressing the underlying disease. The teacher shortage crisis is fueled by complex socio-cultural dynamics: diminishing interest in the teaching profession and a decline in enrollments in teacher certification programs. Therefore, any solution needs to go beyond compensation to address these fundamental issues effectively by removing multiple barriers to entry and completion. 

Innovative partnerships pave a pathway forward. 

An effective way to address these issues lies in fostering innovative partnerships between public schools and university preparation programs. This strategy can help enhance the appeal of the teaching profession, bolster the pipeline of future educators and offer a sustainable solution to the teacher shortage crisis. 

1. Internship, Mentoring and Hands-on Learning: Providing real-world teaching experiences through creative certification programs can attract more education students. For instance, some universities are beginning to offer hands-on teaching experience in local classrooms to undergraduate students endeavoring to earn their degrees. 
2. Financial Accessibility: Addressing the financial barriers to teacher education is paramount. Traditional teacher preparation programs, which often include unpaid student-teaching internships, pose significant financial challenges for many aspiring educators. With tuition costs ever-increasing, this creates a monumental barrier for many. Scholarships, grants or innovative ‘earn-as-you-learn’ programs can help alleviate these burdens.
3. Hybrid Degree Programs: The development of hybrid degree programs that integrate the study of education with other disciplines can broaden the appeal of teaching. Such interdisciplinary programs enable students to explore their interests in various fields while gaining a solid foundation in education.
4. Advocacy for Policy Reforms: Partnerships between public schools and university preparation programs can extend joint advocacy for policy reforms that support teachers. Such reforms could include loan forgiveness for educators, enhanced working conditions and continuous professional development programs. A united front from public schools and university preparation programs can wield substantial influence on educational policy, helping to create a more sustainable and appealing teaching profession. 
5. Joint Research Initiatives: Collaborative research between public schools and university preparation programs can provide valuable insights into teacher recruitment, training and retention strategies. Such insights could then inform more effective practices and policies. For example, a joint research project between Michigan State University’s College of Education and several Michigan school districts . The insights from this research have shaped Michigan’s teacher recruitment and retention policies, resulting in more effective strategies to address the teacher shortage. 

While innovative partnerships can stand alone, there will be opportunities to combine these initiatives in a systemic and thoughtful way to reduce barriers for future students. A prime example is ·¬ÇÑÊÓƵ (ACE), as they work to combine 1, 2 and 4 into one cohesive program. By accepting prior learning experience as credits toward a degree program, students can save money and finish their program faster. Thus, partnering with a local education association (LEA, or school district) allows non-traditional students to earn their degrees and make the most of professional development. This remarkable ingenuity will likely become the industry standard in the near future.   

Initiatives like this can expose students to teaching, make teacher education financially accessible, provide interdisciplinary education, advocate for teacher-friendly policies and promote collaborative research. In fact, they are critical to addressing the teacher shortage crisis. As we stand at this educational crossroads, the choice before us is clear. We can proactively innovate to avoid a similar fate, or we can choose inaction and face the potential decline of our educational system. The time to choose innovation and action is now. 

¹ 

Learn more about partnerships at ·¬ÇÑÊÓƵ.