Teacher prep program eliminated despite teacher shortage

Just when the teacher shortage is at its worst, programs that prepare new teachers to fill the gap have been shuttered. They’re part of the Trump administration’s education cuts: In February, the Department of Education abruptly axed $600 million in grants for the Teacher Quality Partnership Program and the Supporting Effective Educator Development Program; these TQP and SEED grants were established by Congress specifically to bolster the teacher workforce.

The administration cites references to diversity, equity and inclusion as objectionable.

The loss cuts across the entire country, affecting programs—and students—in places like rural Tennessee and Arkansas as well as urban centers like Los Angeles and New Orleans. Countless schools are wondering how to find qualified teachers to serve the students who need them most. A group of eight states has sued the Department of Education and the case is moving through the courts.

Meanwhile, here is what those cuts look like in one North Florida jurisdiction, Clay County, just outside Jacksonville.

What do you do then?

Vicki Kidwell is at a loss. As president of the Clay County AFT affiliate, she sees the strain the teacher shortage has on veteran teachers, and the ways poorly trained substitutes and emergency-trained teachers fall short. She ticks off the challenges and keeps asking herself the same question: When teacher pay is too low to make ends meet, “then what do you do?” When no one applies for teacher vacancies, “then what do you do?”

Florida ranks 45th in the nation in per pupil spending and 50th in average teacher salary, says Kidwell. People don’t want a career that requires working a second or third job just to pay their bills, and they don’t want to work in schools that fail to provide basic resources for their students. The state is notorious for cutting public school funding, but even if the union could win a better budget, no one is applying for vacancies in Clay County—which numbered 200 last May. “Who will we hire?” asks Kidwell. “We would fight for funding, but when you advertise the positions and no one applies, then what do you do?”

And if Trump shutters the Department of Education, as he intends to do, handing funding directly to the states, “we already know what our state does with the funding,” says Kidwell. “They starve the public schools. What happens then?”

Kidwell has a lot of questions but few answers, save the obvious ones. Teachers are already doubling up. Long-term subs are the norm, and some classes have them for the entire year. Kidwell’s nephew had rotating subs in his algebra class, each trying to figure out how to teach the subject; he’d go home and work with his parents, who are both teachers, then share those lessons with his classmates. The class finally got a permanent instructor halfway through the year.

Many of the fill-in teachers have “never even been in a classroom,” says Kidwell. They have no classroom management skills, they’re learning the curriculum on the fly, and they have no idea how to build rapport with the students.

“Every day that there is not a fully certified educator to lead class instruction is a day when students’ academic success is diminished,” says Kidwell. “Professional educators complete a minimum of four years of college study, multiple certification tests, and continuing education throughout their careers. It seems ludicrous to believe that students will excel in classrooms led by rotating substitutes and uncertified instructors.”

Meanwhile veteran teachers are using their breaks and the time before and after school trying to mentor ill-prepared colleagues—because they care about the kids. “It is a constant strain,” says Kidwell, who adds that many teachers wind up leaving.

“These are years we can’t get back for these kids,” says Kidwell.

Beginning to bridge the gap

David Hoppey, an associate professor of education at the University of North Florida and a member of United Faculty of Florida, was hopeful that the program he helped establish three years ago, Project PREP (Partnering to Renew the Educator Pipeline), would begin to bridge the gap. Project PREP provides a supportive infrastructure as well as stipends and other financial support to high school students who want to become teachers, teacher candidates already enrolled in an education program, and returning students pursuing professional development and advanced degrees.

Now that the program’s funding has been canceled, it’s unclear whether students will be able to finish.

The $7 million that funded Project PREP was eliminated as sweeping cuts wreaked havoc on teacher preparation programs funded by TQP (Project PREP’s funding source) and SEED. When Hoppey and his colleagues found out about the loss, they felt sick to their stomachs. “The upsetting thing is at the time of the grant getting canceled we had 110 students receiving stipends to pay for their education. I don’t know how many will continue.”

Most of those students, if not all of them, were planning to teach in Clay County. And while he is disappointed for the college students, he is most concerned about the children in public schools who won’t have qualified teachers. “That’s who I feel the worst for, the students,” he says. “It’s not about us, it’s about the K-12 students who potentially won’t have a teacher.”

Or they’ll have an unqualified teacher. “Alt cert” or alternative certification programs designed as emergency stopgaps have become the go-to for many districts. Many of their graduates have no student teaching experience before they become the primary teacher in charge of lesson planning, classroom setup, discipline, recordkeeping, safety and all the details that come with running an effective classroom. In Florida, people without a bachelor’s degree can teach if they have two years of service in the military.

“Would we do this with accountants? Would we do this with doctors? With dentists and engineers? Lawyers?” asks Hoppey.

A profound loss

Losing Project PREP “really is a blow to something that could have been wonderful,” says Hoppey, adding that it is unlikely the program will be able to continue in the same way without funding. “It’s really hard when you don’t have the infrastructure that the grant was providing.”

And Clay County is not the only place affected. At the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year Florida had nearly 5,000 teacher vacancies in its public schools. “It breaks my heart what’s happening to education in Florida,” says Hoppey.

Kidwell agrees. “I’m sad for this generation, I really am, because they are not getting what they need.”

Despite the setbacks, the union continues to fight for funding and support for aspiring teachers as well as veterans in the profession, ultimately fighting for the education of all young people. As Kidwell says, the current situation “should be unacceptable to every parent and a priority for every lawmaker. The teacher shortage is a crisis, and a generation of students is feeling the impact.”

[Virginia Myers]