“I will continue my efforts to ensure that, just like Florida, California can have its community colleges offer bachelor’s degrees without limitation. I will not rest until the state allows the community colleges to offer baccalaureate degrees in education.”

Light at the end of the tunnel. Several states pass legislation

Legislation has been passed in Florida allowing 27 of their community college to offer baccalaureate degrees in education. Maricopa County Community Colleges in Arizona are now given approval to offer both elementary and special education baccalaureate degrees. The state of Indiana is firming up legislation to allow the 19 Ivy Tech Community Colleges to offer baccalaureate degrees and education is near the top of the list.

Where are the national and state community and technical college leaders?

There are K12 school districts throughout each state struggling to open every new school year due to severe teacher shortages. The Hobbs School District in New Mexico opened their 2023 school year 45 teachers short. By May of 2024, the district was nearly 60 teachers short. Fall semester of 2024 looks to be about the same as a year ago.

Strengthening the pipeline

A recent report suggested ways needed to evaluate the profession of teaching. Cost barriers were one of the most important ones mentioned that keeps many persons from entering the profession. The following are some of the main concerns highlighted in the report:

When schools lack adequate staffing, students with the greatest needs suffer disproportionately.
Students with disabilities and English-language learners cannot access required specialized services.
Students from impoverished families, and those in rural areas who live far from their school building, lose essential transportation and crucial learning time in school.
Above all, students who need extra academic assistance, miss out on instruction when teachers and support personnel are stressed, demoralized or absent (Runcie, 2024).
It highlights emerging challenges, including unfavorable working conditions, diminished professional regard, deep-seated national political divisions, and a need for more teacher diversity (Runcie, 2024).

Advantages of community-technical colleges preparing teachers

The following are areas of high importance to draw in new and often neglected potential teachers:

Students are paying less than $11,000 in tuition and fees for their four-year degrees.
Adults beyond the age of traditional college students already enroll in their local community and technical colleges.
Approximately 60% of students in the baccalaureate programs come from communities of color.
Many adults work and/or have families which make it very difficult to travel to a university or four-year college.

Bonding: The time is now to work together

Bonding between the K-2 school systems and the community and technical colleges for these proposed changes could be accomplished in a matter of weeks. The community and technical colleges have already ‘bonded’ for some years in offering dual-enrollment / dual-credit programs.

Instant Insights /

The community college baccalaureate in teaching: Its time has come!

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