Gateway Cities Journal | A quality, diverse teacher workforce is the foundation of a strong Gateway City

In 2016, Teach Western Mass (TWM) was launched to address severe staffing challenges in Holyoke and Springfield. High-need schools in these Gateway City districts were losing roughly one-third of their teachers every year. This extreme level of churn stemmed largely from heavy reliance on inexperienced and unlicensed educators to fill hard-to-staff roles. Unprepared for the demands of the job, a majority of new hires abandoned teaching within a few short years. High turnover combined with a largely novice educator workforce took a heavy toll on student learning. 

While Massachusetts is making some progress building a more diverse educator workforce, the teacher shortage that urban districts in Western Massachusetts confronted a decade ago is increasingly prevalent in Gateway Cities across the state. Relatively low pay and the post-pandemic challenges that teachers face put intense downward pressure on the educator workforce. As the state’s high school graduates become increasingly diverse, the teacher pipeline is expected to narrow even further, as students of color are significantly less likely than their white peers to enter the teaching profession. 

Moving aggressively to grow a larger and more diverse educator workforce is paramount because teacher quality contributes two to three times more to student achievement than any other school-level factor. As leaders and policymakers weigh their options to fortify the commonwealth’s teacher pipeline, they must reflect carefully on the lessons that TWM provides.  

Through the ups and downs of the past 10 years, TWM brought me and other passionate educators together to help the Pioneer Valley develop an unparalleled initiative to prepare diverse and effective teachers. A recent MassINC Policy Center case study documents our efforts to transform systems to increase the quantity, quality, and diversity of educators serving the region. While we elevated the issues and had programmatic success recruiting and training diverse teachers, the structural inequities that constrain the educator pipeline remain largely intact. 

Massachusetts will not maintain its first-in-the-nation standing in education unless it addresses its educator workforce challenges head-on. Other states provide models for what it looks like to aggressively pursue systemic change.  For example, the Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative stands out as a truly holistic approach to build, fund, and evaluate efforts to grow the educator pipeline. 

No matter how much success Massachusetts has in increasing the number of professionals pursuing teaching careers, it will not be enough to reverse the stark inequities in access to effective educators that students in cities like Holyoke and Springfield experience year-after-year. The state must also do more to ensure that experienced teachers are equitably distributed. Far too often, Gateway Cities and their students assume the cost of training novice teachers for more affluent communities. 

Texas shows that this problem can be solved by providing additional compensation to teachers who serve in high-need schools. While the Texas Teacher Incentive Allotment is by no means perfect, it has significantly reduced teacher turnover and improved student outcomes. Despite its many well-intentioned efforts, it’s fair to say that Massachusetts has struggled mightily to sustainably achieve either of these feats in schools with high concentrations of poverty.  

With the historic new leadership of DESE Commissioner Pedro Martinez and state Secretary of Education Stephen Zrike, we have an opportunity to innovate and accelerate progress across the commonwealth. Solutions to teacher workforce challenges in Gateway Cities already exist. The question is whether we have the resources, urgency, and chutzpah to implement them.