Dive Brief:
- Congress needs to order the acting U.S. secretary of education to reinstate canceled federal grants that sought to address the shortage of qualified educators in schools, a letter signed by over 100 leading national and state education organizations urged last week.
- The letter is in response to a $600 million cut to “divisive” teacher training grants made on Feb. 17 by the U.S. Department of Education. The agency has yet to confirm the specific grants impacted, but the organizations said some of the known affected grants include the Supporting Effective Educator Development, Teacher Quality Partnership and the Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program.
- The canceled funding for educator preparation training programs — like teacher apprenticeships or grow-your-own initiatives — have already disrupted the educator pipeline to fill vacancies next school year as teacher candidates have lost scholarships and paid internships just months before they were to earn their full licensure, according to the letter.
Dive Insight:
The Trump administration's cuts targeted innovative teacher preparation programs that aim to address teacher shortages for special education, science, math, career and technical education, early childhood education and English learners. And they come as districts have hired hundreds of thousands of uncertified teachers in recent years to help plug holes left by teacher shortages.
During the 2024-25 school year alone, districts nationwide hired 400,000 underqualified educators and still saw at least 49,000 vacancies, according to a project by researchers at the University of Missouri, University of Pittsburgh and elsewhere.
The Education Department cuts are part of a wider, controversial sweep of cost-saving measures at federal agencies spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
The recent slashing of federal funds led to the cancellation of all SEED grants and most TQP grants, according to last week’s letter from the education groups. Signatories included AASA, The School Superintendents Association, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Center for Teacher Residencies, the Association for School Business Officials and a host of teacher education organizations and universities from states such as California, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.
“The loss of these grants impacts the effectiveness of our teaching workforce. Many of the programs were designed to attract people from fields outside of education who could bring their expertise into the classroom,” the letter said. “Now, those individuals may no longer have access to the support and resources they need to transition into teaching, depriving students of valuable real-world knowledge and experience.”
The Education Department confirmed to K-12 Dive on Monday that the teacher training grants cut were indeed the TQP and SEED awards.
As the National Assessment of Educational Progress has indicated, “America’s students are falling dangerously behind in math and reading. Teacher prep programs should be prioritizing training that prepares youth with the fundamentals they need to succeed for the future, not wasting valuable training resources on divisive ideologies,” said Savannah Newhouse, a department spokesperson, in an emailed statement responding to the groups’ letter.
The cuts to teacher preparation programs, meanwhile, are already starting to have statewide impacts.
According to the letter, a $23 million investment to build high-quality teacher pipeline programs for high-need schools in Louisiana was canceled. Also cut were two TQP grants in the state focused on recruiting local talent to work in rural schools and running an apprenticeship-based degree and teacher certification process. Additionally, a SEED grant set to provide over 550 teachers to New Orleans schools by 2025 was lost.
In Michigan, a TQP grant to address teacher shortages and another grant for literacy instruction ceased, the organizations wrote. A separate canceled TQP grant in Ohio had sought to extend partnerships between school districts and educator preparation programs to offer high impact tutoring for some of the highest need and most vulnerable students through school-based mentoring models for new teachers, they said.
The cancellation of SEED grants halted initiatives aiming to boost instructional leadership in STEM, literacy, and computational thinking in rural Tennessee. Plus, 35 school leaders and 125 teachers lost planned professional development and training. The cancellation impacts about 3,200 students in rural districts damaged by 2024's Hurricane Helene, the letter said.
