Districts must help student teachers or lose them

A California student teacher is being sent more than 40 minutes away despite rising gas prices and a non-stop schedule of unpaid training. The new $10,000 Student Teacher Stipend Program is intended to ease the burden, but—because districts and charter schools

When Alex left her car that morning, she knew the math didn’t work. Her teaching college placed her in a high school more than 40 minutes from her home in Glendale. and with the rising cost of gas. she’s weighing how to afford the end of her teacher training—especially when she’s already working two jobs just to make ends meet.

When she asked the college what to do, the answers were blunt. First came a suggestion to buy an electric car. Then the college’s second, more realistic recommendation: cross her fingers.

Alex’s situation isn’t a one-off hardship. Since January, the author of this commentary has also been living the squeeze—unpaid teaching during the day, credentialing courses at night, and lesson planning over the weekend, leaving almost no room to earn enough money to keep going.

That crunch is keeping promising educators out of classrooms. A 2021 report by the California Department of Education’s Educator Diversity Advisory Group. which polled practicing public school educators. cited “the unpaid and invisible labor that teachers of color are expected to perform” as a major barrier in diversifying the teaching workforce. Even in comparatively well-off states like Connecticut. surveys show that up to 90% of student teachers worry about the cost of groceries and other essentials.

In Los Angeles. the pressure shows up in daily decisions: one friend races across town for a second student teaching placement after working as a classroom tutor in the morning; another picks up odd-hour shifts at a fast food restaurant. often exhausted; a third is deciding whether to defer the final semester to save money at a full-time job. Some have moved back home. It’s the kind of strain that turns a credential timeline into a survival plan.

Then California approved a solution—on paper, at least. California’s Student Teacher Stipend Program, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last summer, allocated $300 million in state funding for eligible preservice educators. The program provides one-time $10. 000 grants beginning this fall. and the author says her cohort’s group chat lit up with excitement over the promise.

But there’s a catch that could decide who gets paid and who doesn’t. Student teachers like Alex do not apply for the funding. Instead. they receive it automatically when the districts or charter schools they are placed with apply to the program through the state’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

As the author learned from an explanation by the chairperson of the program. the process may feel daunting for participating schools and districts. They must verify that each assigned student teacher is actually working in their assigned school. They also have to determine how to distribute the money when the student teachers are not on the district’s or charter school’s payroll.

For large districts such as Los Angeles Unified—working with hundreds of student teachers—that can be a significant investment of time and resources. The stipend program allots no extra funding for administration. The result. the author warns. is simple: some districts may decide the burden is too high and leave student teachers without the stipend they were meant to receive.

This design also creates a different kind of uncertainty for teachers who already have placements. The author says the college is telling student teachers to be hopeful and patient. working to get districts and charter schools to understand the moral imperative of participating and to remove roadblocks wherever possible. But because districts are still determining whether to participate while many student teachers have already received their fall placements. there’s no way to guarantee which of the students will be paid.

It isn’t happening the same way elsewhere. Earlier this year, Pennsylvania began rolling out $10,000 stipends for student teachers. In that program, students can apply directly, receive the funds on a first-come, first-served basis, and avoid some of the administrative burden placed on placements.

In California, the author argues that the attempt to streamline the system has produced new headaches instead—ones that land directly on preservice educators who are already stretched thin.

California has been trying to rebuild its teacher pipeline. After years of declines. the state’s teaching workforce is finally rebounding to pre-pandemic levels following significant investment in the teacher pipeline. With tuition supports like the Golden State Teacher Grant. the author says the new stipend program has the potential to turn teaching into a long-term sustainable career.

But she adds that the program will only matter if districts and charter schools make sure stipends become reality for the people in their classrooms.

“Do everything we can to help” is how the author describes what teachers do for students they teach—then she flips the expectation back onto district leaders. If districts can’t figure out a way to make the stipend work. she writes. they’re effectively asking student teachers to do what Alex was told to do: cross their fingers.

The author closes with a call for every district leader in the state to step up so preservice educators aren’t forced to gamble on whether help meant for them will arrive after placements are already set.

Stephen Noonoo, a preservice secondary English teacher in Los Angeles and a former education journalist, writes that the opinions in this commentary are his own.

California Student Teacher Stipend Program Gov. Gavin Newsom Commission on Teacher Credentialing Los Angeles Unified unpaid teaching teacher pipeline Educator Diversity Advisory Group teacher training preservice educators