Educators Rising is a national “Grow Your Own” program for high school students interested in a career in education, which has taken off in Pennsylvania over the past year with PSEA at the helm. Aaron, Jeff, and Rachael sit down to discuss this exciting program with PSEA Director of Education Services and Statewide Coordinator for Educators Rising Pennsylvania, Dr. Chris Clayton, as well as Educators Rising Teacher Leader at JP McCaskey High School in the School District of Lancaster, Amanda Funk.
Educators Rising is a national “Grow Your Own” program for high school students interested in a career in education, which has taken off in Pennsylvania over the past year with PSEA at the helm. Aaron, Jeff, and Rachael sit down to discuss this exciting program with PSEA Director of Education Services and Statewide Coordinator for Educators Rising Pennsylvania, Dr. Chris Clayton, as well as Educators Rising Teacher Leader at JP McCaskey High School in the School District of Lancaster, Amanda Funk.
Do you have some feedback for us? Send an email to podcast@psea.org.
Learn more and watch for upcoming episodes at psea.org/podcast.
Voiceover:
Welcome to Duty Free Lunch, the official podcast of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Join us as we unpack the issues that matter most to you. From cutting-edge classroom strategies to thought-provoking policy discussions, if it impacts PSEA members, it's on the menu.
Aaron Chapin:
Hello, and welcome to Duty Free Lunch. I am PSEA President Aaron Chapin, and I'm here once again with my colleagues, PSEA Vice President Jeff Ney-
Jeff Ney:
Hey, Aaron. How are you doing?
Aaron Chapin:
... and Treasurer Rachael West.
Rachael West:
Hey, Aaron and Jeff. How are you doing?
Aaron Chapin:
It's long time no see.
Jeff Ney:
Yeah. It's been a while.
Aaron Chapin:
Yeah, it's been like 30 minutes.
Jeff Ney:
Almost.
Aaron Chapin:
Yes. For our listeners, we've recorded a bunch of podcasts in one day. If you're scrolling through and looking at the different episodes, well, these might be those. I know. Tell me something, Jeff.
Jeff Ney:
Okay.
Aaron Chapin:
We've had a busy, busy spring.
Jeff Ney:
We have, yes.
Aaron Chapin:
What are your favorite parts?
Jeff Ney:
Oh, the favorite part is actually getting into some of the locals that we have not talked to and talked to some of the members and just getting the connection back with the members so that they know they've got somebody who is fighting for them for the job that they do.
Aaron Chapin:
Rachel?
Rachael West:
I think Read Across America was my favorite thing this spring. I have never had a chance to do that and, as a secondary teacher, it was a lot of interesting time with tiny people that I was not used to. It was actually really fun to see what those primary teachers are doing on an everyday basis, and I don't know how they do it every day.
Jeff Ney:
How about you, Aaron?
Aaron Chapin:
I almost forgot all about Read Across America.
Jeff Ney:
Wow.
Aaron Chapin:
It was that long ago. Of course, when you're listening to this, it might be summertime. It might be the beginning of next school year.
Jeff Ney:
It might be.
Aaron Chapin:
But I enjoyed both of those. Actually, one of the things I've really enjoyed this spring, but this whole school year, is the fact that we at PSEA have been taking such an active approach into getting more educators into our pipeline. I think we've done a really great job. It's been great going around telling our members about it. It's been great seeing the beginnings of what we're doing, and so-
Jeff Ney:
I see what you did there.
Aaron Chapin:
I know. It's a tie-in. It's a nice tease, huh? I know. It's like I've been doing this all 2024. Our topic today is Educators Rising. It's a national Grow Your Own program for high school students who might be interested in a career in education which has taken off in Pennsylvania over the past year. It's something that I've been very excited about because this happened to me back in high school. I hope it really is going to be something that catches on here in Pennsylvania.
We have two experts on this program who are going to talk with us about this. First is our PSEA director of education services and statewide coordinator for the Educators Rising Pennsylvania, Dr. Chris Clayton.
Hello, Chris.
Chris Clayton:
Hello, Aaron. How are you?
Aaron Chapin:
It's great to you in the studio. I'm doing very well. Joining us on the phone for this podcast is Ed Rising teacher leader at J. P. McCaskey High School in the School District of Lancaster, Amanda Funk.
Hello, Amanda.
Amanda Funk:
Hi. Thank you for having me.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, thank you. Again, Amanda, Chris, thank you for joining us. We've got a lot of questions to get off to you both, so let's get things started.
Chris, I think the most important thing we can do right now is just give our listeners a quick rundown of what Educators Rising is and what kind of growth we've seen in the last year here in Pennsylvania.
Chris Clayton:
For sure. Multitudes of your listeners may remember, back in the day, we had FTA or FEA programs all across the state, Future Teacher or Future Educators of America, and that was an NEA program. Quite a little while back, essentially, NEA let that go, and Phi Delta Kappa, or henceforth PDK, picked it up and they partnered back with NEA and National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and they built a brand new platform called Educators Rising.
Educators Rising is built really on a foundation of standards that were derived from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. I'm a proud national board-certified teacher myself. It really is built on that foundation. Then there's a full potential two-year scope and sequence curriculum that's available, but, really, what it is an opportunity for high school students to begin to explore becoming an educator. It gives really the opportunity to connect with a nationwide organization that is really grounded in this space of helping students think about becoming educators and getting that positive experience and that positive narrative around entering the profession.
There are over 25,000 members of Educators Rising across the country right now, high school students that are members. It's really incredible how quickly it's growing. In Pennsylvania, specifically, to answer your question, we started with zero members in September this year. I just checked this morning. We have 167 current members of Educators Rising in Pennsylvania already.
Aaron Chapin:
That's great.
Chris Clayton:
We're seeing different versions of Ed Rising emerge, and we can talk about the different models.
Aaron Chapin:
Absolutely.
Chris Clayton:
We're going to look at one today with McCaskey, and it's a really unique model there, but I would say we've got already the sort of versions of anywhere from 30 to 40 programs already up and running. I had, in the last 48 hours, conversations with Lebanon School District, IU-1 Interboro, AEA, State College Area School District. Just as an example, in the last 24 hours, we're all thinking about getting programs started next year. It's growing rapidly.
Aaron Chapin:
This school year, how many school districts do you have working with us then?
Chris Clayton:
Yeah. You're probably looking somewhere this year where there's two elements to consider. There's the CTE world where you're in an approved CTE program. There were 13 that applied this past year and then four that were up and running as a CTE-approved pathway provider. That includes McCaskey and the School District of Lancaster. They're a unique model in that they have a CTE program onsite at McCaskey High School. Kids leave the school, but they don't. They stay right there onsite to go to this career and technical center, or CTC.
I would say we have probably anywhere from afterschool advisory club models that exist in probably 10 or so of those to three or four full CTE models that we're already running this year and a number that are applying to get started next year, and then some that are running Ed Rising and using it as a career elective, and so probably anywhere from 20 to 30 this year. I would expect 40 to 50 to be that number and some version of that next year.
Aaron Chapin:
It's really going to explode next year.
Chris Clayton:
Yeah, to give you an example, there were over 2,500 high school kids at the Ed Rising National Conference last year in Orlando. The Texas State Conference this year, they sold out at 3,500 kids. They had to rent out the biggest convention center in Dallas to have their state conference. That's the type of growth we're seeing nationwide.
Aaron Chapin:
That's great.
Rachael West:
That's spectacular. I actually enjoyed the first Pennsylvania one at Millersville. I got a chance to stop in and see how that was, and it was a really great event.
Chris Clayton:
Thank you for mentioning that. We'd be remiss if we didn't. Yeah, we have 167 members this year, and we had about 80 high school kids at our first Educators Rising Pennsylvania State Conference, which was April 19th at Millersville University. Rachel was there. We were really thrilled to have her there. It was incredible to think that we basically half of the members in the state were at our state conference this year, this first year of running it. We're excited next year. I already planned March 28th on the campus of Penn State University and State College. It will be year two state conference for Educators Rising in Pennsylvania.
Aaron Chapin:
Can't wait.
Rachael West:
All right, so we're going to switch gears a little bit. Amanda, can you tell us a little bit about your role as the teacher leader and how that came about at J.P. McCaskey?
Amanda Funk:
Sure. Currently, I am co-teaching with the early childhood program, which I'll talk about at some point, but really my role here is to develop future educators with the foundations and backgrounds to be successful upon entering a four-year teacher certificate program.
There's a lot of negativity out there about becoming a teacher. Even some of the kids in our class will say that their parents don't really want them to be teachers. I really want to bring the positivity and the passion and the love back into teaching and show kids that, yes, it's a difficult profession, but the positives outweigh the negatives and you make it what it is.
I'm pretty sure I got this right, but our PSEA local officers in our district, we have a very strong union in our district, and they had heard about the Ed Rising program. They came back and brought it to our interim superintendent at the time, and he jumped on it right away, had some meetings with the high school administrators and, ultimately, I found out last summer. A couple of people reached out and said, "There's going to be a new program at the high school. We'd like you to think about possibly applying. It might be a good fit for you." I really didn't know what I was getting into too much. I did my research so and I thought, "This Ed Rising sounds pretty awesome." I had an interview in August. It was right at the start of school, so I stayed where I was until October, but I officially started in October.
For the past 15 years, I've been an instructional coach and an assistant principal. My main passion is teacher development, and I thought, wow, developing students to be teachers is like the quintessential best job I could absolutely have, to develop teachers, but also be in a classroom with students. I think that's really what hooked me and got me thinking like, "I definitely want this job." I am all about a Grow Your Own program and startups. I have lots of big ideas, and I'm so grateful for the people around me that can center me and bring my ideas and put them into action.
Rachael West:
It sounds like you have a pretty solid passion for this. How is your Educators Rising curriculum integrated into your existing courses at McCaskey? Is that included in the CTE framework? How does that look there?
Amanda Funk:
So Chris mentioned earlier we brag that we're the only high school in Lancaster County that has an in-house CTE program. While we do collaborate with the outside CTC and some students do leave, we offer similar courses here in the high school so the kids don't have to leave at all.
I am under the CTE umbrella. This year, while we were applying for course approval, I co-taught with the current program, the early childhood program that's in place. I'm having so much success building the Ed Rising program because of the strong foundation that's here with the early childhood class. A lot of the students that are in this class chose because they liked working with children and, some of them, specifically younger children. That's the early childhood part obviously, but they were also interested in being teachers. They were excited to hear that there was someone else coming developing a new course that would concentrate more on K-12 teaching.
Jeff Ney:
You heard with Aaron's introduction and along with Rachel and myself, and Chris and I have had several conversations way back when about trying to get this up and running, the excitement that we have for this program cannot be overstated enough. What about the students? I hear that the kids will have this interest, but now that they're into the program, how have they responded to being part of this whole program? Is there any story that you could tell us about something that maybe one of your students expressed that really shocked you?
Amanda Funk:
In short, I can say that it's just magical really how the students have been responding. We've had one senior that, before I arrived, she talked to Mrs. Johnson, who is the teacher of the early childhood program, and she said, "I really don't want to work with little kids. This is not for me," and Mrs. Johnson said, "Just wait. Just wait. There is a teacher coming. There's a new course she's going to start in October. Just hang on."
That senior, she hung on, and she's grateful that she did. They're getting their CDA. They need hours for the CDA. They have to be placed second grade or below for their co-op, but what we did was we made sure she got her hours for that and then we bumped her up to fifth grade. I wanted to experiment a little bit and make connections with some of the elementary teachers in our district in the older grades. She really had a great experience and it really fired her up even more. She just recently got accepted into Pitt, and she's going to go most likely for secondary education.
Jeff Ney:
That's great. How about that?
Amanda Funk:
Her ultimate goal is ed policy.
Jeff Ney:
Oh, there we go. Nice.
Amanda Funk:
We are super excited. The secretary of education, Dr. Mumin, he came to visit us, and he stopped and talked with our students, and he said, "Does anyone have any comments or questions?" and she looked right at him and she said, "Yeah, I want your job."
Jeff Ney:
Oh, wow. Okay, there's the answer to that story.
Aaron Chapin:
There we go.
Jeff Ney:
Along with everything that these kids are getting as far as their hours and stuff like that go, and, Chris, this may be a question for you, do these students coming out of our Ed Rising program get any additional certifications that they might be able to use or benefit them in their future education?
Chris Clayton:
I can let Amanda speak to specifically her program, but, in terms of the program statewide, you've got a couple of things to consider. In the CTE world, if it is used as a CTE program, then there's the NOCTI Exam. I actually was one of the four people that had the opportunity to help write that as a part of this role. Ultimately, when that moves into place, right now it's in psychometrician piloting purposes, so a hundred kids have to take it and they do the testing authentication to make sure it's valid, and then, at the end of next year, potentially, that will get a kid a credential.
You will certainly not be a fully certified teacher at the end of the pathway, but you would have done a performance assessment exam and demonstrated some skills or competencies in that. What we're currently looking at is figuring out what does that get a kid? There are articulation agreements that are happening across the state, so, potentially, some college credit in order to get them up and running on that pathway. That's one aspect to consider.
Within the Ed Rising program, there are five specific microcredentials that a student can also earn, and that is a true performance-based assessment or competency. A student, if they pass and attain those credentials, would demonstrate competency in specific aspects of a pedagogy, honestly. It's pretty incredible what students are coming out with in terms of skillsets and dispositions already around teaching and knowledge, stuff that I wouldn't have had 'til my third, fourth, fifth year in teaching, high school kids are already demonstrating real competency in.
Then what I'm currently working on is aligning those then to essentially articulation agreements with universities across the state. For example, we're already working with West Chester University where a kid might have six college credits already through that or, PennWest University, we're looking at potentially nine college credits. Essentially, if they can already demonstrate that they have this knowledge, skills and disposition, why not give them credit for it and move them along that pathway towards their teacher preparation program?
Jeff Ney:
Very good.
Aaron Chapin:
Yeah, and I love that. It's something that, our members as well as administration, they're coming to an agreement on this. We often hear about the stories of administration and our union rubbing against each other, just that friction. This is something where we're coming together. We both realize there's a problem. We need to fix it. It's great to see this partnership, and I think it's going to be great for school districts across the state.
Chris Clayton:
Yeah. One thing I would say, Aaron, it's interesting we were comfortable with this model in AP and IV, and it's just taken a little while. Sometimes, it takes a little while to get the mindset to shift. Well, how is this different than an AP class, right? If a student can already demonstrate knowledge, skills and disposition, and it's being taught by high school teacher, but they can do that and it's being verified, why not give them credit for that along the way? Once we get our members to understand that, it's really exciting stuff.
Aaron Chapin:
One of the things PSEA has been very involved with as we were slowly coming out of the pandemic is just our efforts when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. We've really come a long way. We have a lot further to go, but one of the things that we were made very aware of is just how much work we need in the State of Pennsylvania to just diversify the teaching profession. When it comes to this teaching shortage, this has a potential to have a big impact on getting more people of color into the education profession.
Chris, I'm going to go to you first and maybe have you explain how that might actually work, and then, Amanda, I'm going to be coming to you for another question on this.
Chris Clayton:
For sure, and Amanda is on the ground doing that with a really diverse school district as an example. Let's take a look at just some sobering facts around Pennsylvania right now. If you look at the 2019-2020 school year, 95% of all teachers in Pennsylvania were white teachers that year. Over 50% of schools employed only white teachers in their entire school. Over 37% of districts in the entire district had only white teachers in the entire district. Over 20 of the 67 counties that year had entirely white teaching workforce.
One of the things we're battling is if I'm a student of color and we have an increasingly more diverse group of K-12 students, about 68% of our students are white or about 95% of our teachers, which is one of the largest gaps in the country, and our Pennsylvania students are diversifying really pretty quickly now across the state, if I'm a student of color and I never see anyone that looks like me as a teacher in my entire K-12 experience, which is highly likely, I never conceptualize becoming that thing. There's an intrinsic battle there right away, right? I think Ed Rising creates a structure to tap students on the shoulder and say, "Hey, maybe you've never seen someone that looks like you, and maybe you've never thought about being a teacher, but you would be an awesome teacher. Come get involved," and it creates a real opportunity to do that in our most diverse school districts.
Aaron Chapin:
We're going to go to you now, Amanda, because I want to see how is that manifesting now inside your school with this program?
Amanda Funk:
Like Chris said, it is really important for our kids to see people that look like them in teacher positions, but it's also important to have shared experiences in my opinion. That's what the best thing about this Grow Your Own is. Currently, our highest population, and about 60% of our student population is Hispanic, with 16% Black and 12% Caucasian. If I tell you our stats for staff, it sounds very similar to what Chris quoted with 69% Caucasian, 20% Hispanic and 8% Black.
Our current classroom is about 90% diverse. Of our students who are accepted into college and committed to a teacher prep program, 57% of them are Hispanic, 28% are white, and we have one student that is Haitian. All of them are planning on coming back to SDoL, School District of Lancaster, to teach and become employed.
Aaron Chapin:
Awesome.
Rachael West:
Oh, that's awesome. Amanda, just quick, what is one of the challenges that you've faced implementing the Ed Rising program at McCaskey, and what are your goals for the future of the program?
Amanda Funk:
I think the biggest challenge right now isn't really with the program itself. It's more of getting it up off the ground and getting it started. Mrs. Johnson and I, that's my co-teacher, she's the one that teaches the early childhood, we were really trying to think about what's similar about our two courses in the CTE world, our task list, what overlaps, what can we teach together to make sure that students really can pick an education pathway that's best for them, whether they want to focus on, we call it the little or the ankle-biters, whichever you want to say, or if they want to come and be an older school-aged teacher. We just want to make sure that we get the best experiences.
Honestly, my district has been so supportive with partnering with other schools for job shadowing and experiences and sending the kids to a middle school for a day. I've had no issues with that. It's just exposing them and seeing what we can do right now in these next two years of transition before we split, if we even split. We see a lot of potential in this program to not only bring teachers to the district, certified teachers, but also paraprofessionals as well between the two programs.
Rachael West:
That's spectacular.
Aaron Chapin:
I love hearing the excitement. Look, it's the end of the school year. She's excited still about this, and it's real kudos to this program.
Jeff Ney:
It's fantastic.
Aaron Chapin:
But, Jeff-
Jeff Ney:
Yes, sir?
Aaron Chapin:
... pop quiz time, pop quiz.
Jeff Ney:
Fantastic. Amanda, I got this pop quiz question for you. Chris, you're not going to get it. If any of our listeners want to hear Chris' answer to the pop quiz, they're going to have to start their own Ed Rising and get them to their schools. For the last few weeks, maybe few months, we have really started to focus on why all of our educators got into education in the first place. Amanda, could you tell us about the teacher that you had that inspired you to pursue a career in education?
Amanda Funk:
Whenever I'm asked this question, I always have to give a shoutout to my all-time favorite teacher, Ms. Royer, at Neff Elementary at Manheim Township in Lancaster. She was my first grade teacher. She made learning fun. We had student choice. She was always smiling, and you just knew that she cared.
With that being said, the ultimate teacher educator in my life that had the biggest impact on me was my papi. He embodied what it meant to me to be a teacher. He actually also started at SDoL, School District of Lancaster, where I'm at. He started at Washington Elementary where I started as well. He coached basketball at Hand, which is now Jackson, which is where I was an administrator. He was a principal at several of the elementary schools in this district. The year he retired was the year I was born. He was the interim elementary superintendent, so I really feel like his legacy continues. I'm just getting a little emotional because he never actually got to see me teach. I started student teaching, and he passed away three weeks before I started student teaching. I really feel like his legacy continues through me and, ultimately, through my students and then all the amazing ripples that they're going to produce as well.
Aaron Chapin:
Wow.
Jeff Ney:
That's an honor.
Aaron Chapin:
I have no doubt he'd be super proud of everything that you've been doing and everything you continue to do. This has been great hearing your experiences. We didn't have nearly enough time to get into all this. I look forward to the next school year. I'm already looking forward to it. I know some people might be like, "Whoa." I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait to see what Educators Rising is going to do next year. I'm expecting big things. I know, Chris, you are, too. I can't wait for the conference next year.
Jeff Ney:
I can't wait for the conference. Chris mentioned it earlier. I can't wait to get to that conference.
Aaron Chapin:
It's going to be fantastic.
Rachael West:
It's already in my calendar.
Aaron Chapin:
All right. I don't know if it's in mine yet. Somebody needs to put it there.
Jeff Ney:
March 28th.
Aaron Chapin:
Well, somebody should put it in my calendar. I'm definitely going to be there. Unfortunately, that's it. We're out of time again. All these podcasts seem to go so quickly. Our guests today have been Amanda Funk, thank you very much, and Dr. Chris Clayton.
Amanda Funk:
Thanks for having me.
Aaron Chapin:
Oh, my gosh, absolutely. Thank you just for taking time out out of your busy day.
Dr. Chris Clayton, thank you for being here.
Chris Clayton:
Thank you for having me.
Aaron Chapin:
It's not often we get to see you in the office because you're always scattered across the state being stretched thin. Thank you for making a little bit of time for us. Thank you to both of you just for joining us and giving us a little bit of extra information about Educators Rising.
Our listeners out there, if this piqued your interest and you talk to maybe some of your administrators in your district, go to psea.org/educatorsrising. There's a lot of good information. I know Dr. Clayton will be happy to get in touch with you and do whatever it takes to get it started next year. If you have some feedback for us, got some questions, comments, want advice from any of the officers, especially Jeff, he's-
Chris Clayton:
Don't ever ask Jeff for anything.
Jeff Ney:
Oh, my goodness.
Aaron Chapin:
That's terrible.
Jeff Ney:
Come on now.
Aaron Chapin:
You got to email us at podcast@psea.org. Anyway, I am Aaron Chapin.
Jeff Ney:
I'm Jeff Ney.
Rachael West:
I'm Rachel West.
Aaron Chapin:
You've been listening to Duty Free Lunch. Bye for now.
Voiceover:
You've been listening to Duty Free Lunch with the Pennsylvania State Education Association. Visit psea.org/podcast to learn more, and don't forget to subscribe and share. Paid for by the Pennsylvania State Education Association.