Teacher Apprentice Programs Are Spreading Like Wildfire

 
There are two types of teacher gaps in America: unfilled jobs, and those jobs held by people who aren’t fully certified. North Dakota is an early adopter of a strategy that meets both of these needs.

A new apprentice program is attracting new teachers and helping existing paraprofessionals earn certification. The U.S. Department of Labor is now allowing teachers to be included in its Registered Apprenticeship program, opening up access to federal dollars to cover the costs of teacher training. In some participating states, the cost of an education degree has come down to $20,000 on average.

The Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Program is helping North Dakota schools attract people with a passion for teaching but put off by the cost of a degree, unsure they could ever pay back the debt on a teacher’s salary. Many who take advantage of it are single mothers already working as school paraprofessionals, says Laurie Matzke, assistant superintendent of public instruction for North Dakota. The chance to keep jobs they love and earn certification at no cost is “like a miracle.”

“We’ve had a severe teacher shortage for quite a while now, especially in the area of special education,” she adds.

Federally funded apprenticeships will play a big role in bringing as many as 800 new teachers to North Dakota schools in the next two years. “Eight hundred new teachers coming out might not seem like a lot to some places,” Matzke says. “But in North Dakota, where we only have 10,000 teachers, that’s a lot.”

This type of need is present everywhere. Based on available state-level data, the Learning Policy Institute estimated that in 2024 almost 1 in 8 teaching positions in American schools (or more than 400,000) were either empty or filled by a teacher without certification.


Tennessee was the first state to adopt this teacher apprenticeship model. That was as recent as 2022. Now, every state but Montana has such a program, with varying degrees of participation by school districts, training colleges and aspiring teachers. (California, for example, has just one apprentice teacher.) Nationwide, there are about 5,000 apprentice teachers. North Dakota is seeking approval for a leadership program that would help train future principals.

“It spread like wildfire,” Matzke says. “All of the states were jumping on the bandwagon to get their own teacher apprenticeship programs.”

A National Network

North Dakota’s Department of Public Instruction was a founding member of a national network created to guide design and implementation of teacher registered apprenticeships. While there are uncertainties about where the U.S. Department of Education is headed, Matzke believes that the workforce development funds that support this form of teacher training are not likely to be cut.

David Donaldson, then-chief of human capital for the Tennessee Department of Education, opened the door for other states when his application for the occupation of teaching to be included in the federal program was approved in 2021.

It was his fourth attempt. “I submitted three applications that were all denied,” he says. “The Department of Labor kept saying I had to make it so that if they approved it, any state could use it.”

North Dakota was one of the first states to follow suit. With Donaldson’s help, it had federal approval by the end of 2022. He now leads a nonprofit helping other states grow their programs.

The apprenticeship “earn and learn” model doesn’t involve additional costs to districts. Apprentices fill paraprofessional jobs that are already part of school budgets. It’s not unusual for apprentices already to be working in a district when they begin their certification training.

The Importance of Partnerships

In North Dakota, six universities work with Matzke’s apprenticeship program. Mayville State University has been the most active partner so far, working with 20 apprentices at present. A good number are older than typical college students, often in their 40s or 50s.

Carly Theis, a special education specialist at Mayville, points to one near-graduate who enrolled after raising a family. “She told me it’s been her dream her entire life to be a special education teacher, and it’s finally a reality,” Theis says. “She belongs in that classroom.”

Apprentices are mentored by teachers, and professors are able to keep an eye on both the progress of students and the performance of the mentors. This creates a feedback loop that can inform training. In the classroom, Theis says, she can see where students are struggling. This helps her see what other strategies she might need to provide to them onsite, or what she can add to her coursework. “We’re constantly reflecting on and changing our own practices,” Theis says. “It’s cool to experience this and to model how we do that for our students.”

Implementing the registered apprenticeship program requires negotiating how much colleges will receive for providing training. There are costs to universities that might deserve more consideration, whether travel to schools or the time involved in working out details that come with rolling out any new initiative.

Expanding the Program

Most recently, North Dakota has initiated a registered apprenticeship program for educators who would like to earn an advanced degree and become principals, the first of its kind. It’s posted a playbook other states can follow to create such a program. Matzke is currently seeking approval for a lead teacher apprenticeship.

For now, Matzke is watching as the first apprentices graduate, hopeful that they will have a better experience in their first year as a certified teacher than she did decades ago.

“I felt like sending an apology letter to the parents my first year in the classroom,” she says. “You’re so green you don’t know what you’re doing and it’s just overwhelming.”