As dean of Bowling Green State University’s College of Education in Ohio, Dawn Shinew has watched aspiring teachers struggle to make ends meet.
Often, they can’t afford to work as unpaid student-teachers in schools while paying tuition and the usual costs of living. It’s doubly discouraging, Shinew said, because few will earn a high salary after they graduate and enter the teaching profession.
“We do have students, who, I think, would be interested, really talented, the kinds of people we want to be in classrooms, [for whom] it isn’t a matter of commitment, it’s a practical reality,” Shinew said.
A bill reintroduced in the U.S. Senate this week could change the situation for students like those Shinew teaches, while also providing more tutors to K-12 schools as they struggle to catch students up.
The Partnering Aspiring Teachers with High-Need Schools to Tutor bill, sponsored by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., along with Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Roger Wicker, R-Miss., would provide $500 million in grant funding to support partnerships between universities, community organizations, and K-12 schools to get people who want to pursue teaching into tutoring roles.
The money could be used to provide teaching students with stipends or other forms of payment for their in-classroom work, something that’s not traditionally available to student-teachers.
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