Across America, there is an urgent need for more qualified teachers. In Colorado, ten percent of teaching positions went unfilled during the 2023-2024 school year. Among other factors, the added stress of always teaching shorthanded is one reason more than half of all Colorado teachers tell researchers they are thinking about leaving the profession in the near future.
To address this dire situation, Colorado recently created a new and innovative teacher degree apprenticeship program. In this program, apprentices are paid for on the job learning as well as provided with low cost college education. Apprentices earn more than half of their college credits with on-the-job experience in the classroom. This holistic apprenticeship approach shows very promising results with more than 95% percent of apprentices on track to finish their teaching degrees in 2 – 4 years and with a lot less debt incurred.
For many students, having a teacher and role model who represents their gender or heritage and is connected with their community can be an important factor in staying and succeeding in school. Within Colorado’s new teaching apprenticeship program, the apprentices far and away better match the student population than incumbent teachers do today. Most notably, the apprenticeship program includes twenty-eight percent more women of color and three percent more men than the current licensed teaching population of Colorado.
Importantly, 50% of apprentices come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and have the opportunity to earn wages, oftentimes to support a family at home, for work that directly supports their degree attainment. Pilot participants will gain, on average, $8,920 in annual earnings between their pre-program salary and the annual starting teacher salary in Colorado.
Early results project incredible future success and the total number of apprentices is expected to double for the 2025-2026 school year.
Click here to read the full “Teacher Degree Apprenticeship in Colorado: Early Lessons” report.