Engagement in professional associations offers significant growth, networking, and development opportunities. Despite these benefits, participation in such associations is decreasing, with financial constraints, irrelevant member benefits, and generational disconnect as primary factors. At the 2024 AAFCS conference, a session titled "W.H.Y.…

The United States is experiencing a critical teacher shortage impacting public schools in all regions. Unfortunately, high teacher attrition rates can contribute to educational inequity for students, creating situations in which some students receive a higher quality education than others. Unfortunately, teacher attrition tends to be most…

The notion of inert benevolence has been written about in the context of primary school teachers working with "languages beyond English" (Cunningham and Little, 2022). However, the concept has a broader relevance for those working in education and this paper seeks to explore it more fully, through the use of the metaphor of a…

We are a team of experienced teacher educators working with various licensure programs: teaching English to speakers of other languages, literacy, primary, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In the summer of 2020, as faculty in a college of education in an urban area in upper Midwest, we participated in a grassroots faculty-led…

Unexpected and emergency expenses remain a persistent barrier to on-time college completion and student success. A staggering number of students, particularly those enrolled in public 2-year and most Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), report they would be unable to come up with $500 within a month. As the demographic of college students becomes…

The Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) and the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) determined that an effective strategy for addressing teacher shortages and filling hard-to-fill positions in remote geographic locations is to offer repayment of educational loans for those who fill these positions. The Loan Forgiveness Program…

Chapter 54 of the Statutes of 2022 (AB 183) allocated $30,000,000 to establish the California Community Colleges (CCC) "Native American Student Support and Success Program" (NASSSP) for the purpose of: (1) strengthening K-12 pathways to and through the CCC system for Native American students; (2) ensuring the educational success of…

This brief seeks to serve as a clarion call for all educators and policymakers who believe higher education is a viable pathway to socioeconomic prosperity and eradicating centuries of generational poverty for Black people residing in the U.S. Despite the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which marked the end of de jure segregation in the…

The intent of this annual report is to shine light on the Texas Education Agency's strategic plan to ensure every student in Texas is prepared for success in college, a career or the military, and that by 2030 at least 60% of Texans will have a degree, certificate, or other postsecondary credential of value as part of Building a Talent Strong…

Grow Your Own (GYO) is a teacher recruitment and preparation strategy focused on developing and retaining teachers from the local community. GYO is often used to address teacher shortages and strengthen the teacher workforce; it relies on local community pathways and reciprocal relationships between institutions of higher education, community…

Societal expectations are rising for higher education to help learners develop into engaged, responsible and resilient citizens of the world. Against this backdrop, the 2024 EUA Learning & Teaching Thematic Peer Group 'Learning and teaching to empower students' explored a crucial prerequisite for cultivating these qualities in graduates: an…

Efforts to build a well-prepared, stable, and diverse teacher workforce can face many challenges; these include lower compensation than comparable college-degree careers and high costs of credentialing. More than 6 in 10 teachers have taken out student loans to support their education, and close to 4 in 10 are still repaying them. Student loan…

The Smallville Independent School District case study highlights the challenges of a school district facing the COVID-19 pandemic in a rural-urban divide. The district's socioeconomic status, with a high population of economically disadvantaged families, limited resources, and dependence on grants and local charity, further complicates matters.…

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were large gaps in Maine's high school graduation rates, high school dropout rates, college persistence, and college completion across socio economic status, racial and ethnic groups, English learner status, and disability status. The pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated existing inequities and challenges,…

The American Talent Initiative's Student Success Research Grant Program supported research studies aimed at deepening our understanding of the institutional practices and strategies that can improve student success at high-graduation-rate institutions. The findings will offer actionable recommendations for supporting lower-income students, while…