Promoting a more inclusive & representative teacher workforce through English upskilling
Recruiting and retaining teachers is a perpetual challenge faced by school districts across the country. While there are more teachers working in our K-12 schools today than there were before the COVID-19 pandemic, districts still struggle to fill teacher positions for specific high-need disciplines like special education and math and science.
This misalignment of teacher “supply and demand” in specific subject areas parallels a larger national misalignment between the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of teachers and their students. While a vast majority of U.S. teachers identified as non-Hispanic white, less than half of K-12 students in the U.S. were white. According to the National Education Association, one in four children in U.S. schools will be an English language learner by 2025.
Research suggests that a more inclusive teacher workforce that reflects students’ backgrounds improves attendance and academic outcomes. Immigrants, refugees, and speakers of other languages are well-positioned to fill vital gaps in staffing and representation at our schools – if school districts champion their inclusion.
Building a more representative teacher workforce
To help fill teacher shortages and boost diversity, an increasing number of school districts have relied on J-1 “cultural exchange visas” which allow qualified educators from other countries to teach in the U.S. for up to five years. The number of teachers recruited through this cultural exchange program increased by 69 percent from 2015 to 2021, reflecting rapidly growing demand.
School districts must tap new talent pools – and they can start by connecting with talent that is already in the U.S. An estimated two million immigrants and refugees with college degrees – including teaching credentials earned in other countries – are unemployed or underemployed, the result of systemic barriers.
A growing number of states have passed legislation that creates or expands pathways for immigrants and refugees to become teachers. These models hold promise for addressing teacher shortages and boosting linguistic and cultural representation in classrooms across the country. But scaling this approach and ensuring its sustainability requires support for these new teachers to build the critical English language skills they will need to thrive in their careers.
EnGen Can Help
EnGen partners with employers and educational institutions alike to advance immigrant workforce inclusion with a trailblazing, research-backed approach for English upskilling. The mobile-friendly, digital EnGen platform offers adult learners access to personalized, career-aligned language instruction. Context is critical to our approach, which is why we’ve built contextualized pathways for specific educators:
English for Early Childhood Education
This course provides language for the basics of early childhood education, which will assist learners in preparing to become certified to work in daycare or preschool environments.
This course provides the language needed to become a paraeducator. Learn about the key role paraeducators play in the education system and practice reading and listening skills with lessons about how to support learners of all kinds.
This course is designed for professionals in the fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, who are interested in retraining as secondary school teachers in the U.S. Learners will gain useful language and vocabulary about teaching strategies and the U.S. educational system, as well as get an overview of various pathways to teacher certification.
Hundreds of learners across dozens of organizations are already working on EnGen’s pathways to careers in education, positioning them for positive impact in students’ academic outcomes. There’s great opportunity to scale this approach to meet demand. Learn how EnGen can connect immigrant and refugee educators with careers in your community: Request a platform demo.