New ‘2+2’ program takes novel approach to Michigan’s teacher shortage

In recent years, policymakers and school districts have rolled out a number of strategies to address Michigan's teacher shortage, including alternative routes to teacher certificationand "grow-your-own" programs that recruit and train aspiring educators from within a district. Over the past several years, the State of Michigan has also invested $275 millioninto a variety of programs intended to ameliorate the shortage. The good news is that some of these plans and investments may be starting to pay off. The number of newly certified teachers from alternative programs recently jumped by 28%, and traditional programs at Michigan universities also saw modest gains of 5%. Overall, the number of teachers leaving the profession, though still high compared to pre-pandemic levels, is now eclipsed by the number of new teachers entering the workforce.

It's a start, but almost everyone agrees that Michigan still has a long road ahead. Many in the education field worry that some alternative routes to certification may not be preparing educators as robustly as traditional university-based programs. In addition, with veteran teachers leaving the profession, an increasingly young workforce may lack the proper mentoring to get them through those tough initial years, when attrition among teachers is common. Moreover, shortages are still particularly acute in special education, as well as in urban and rural areas. UM-Dearborn's education program actually has a history of its graduates going to metro Detroit schools that are most in need of teachers. Now, a new community college partnership could bring some relief to rural areas. Department of Education Chair Danielle DeFauw and Associate Director of Curriculum, Transfer and Enrollment Initiatives Jonathan Larson, who both grew up in rural parts of Michigan, say that many would-be teachers face an immediate obstacle: University-based programs - and their accompanying student teaching placements - are simply located too far away from their homes. "I was listening to community colleges all across the state and they were saying they have people who want to be teachers who can't leave this area," says Larson, who specializes in articulation agreements between institutions. "Their family is here, they work full time, often as a parapro or long-term sub. And they would love to be teachers, but they can't be certified because they can't go away for a couple years to study at a university and do their student teaching. There was nothing to help them become teachers and stay where they live."

A new partnership between UM-Dearborn's Department of Education and Jackson College is hoping to be a model for overcoming this geographic challenge. Within this new "2+2" elementary education pilot program, Jackson College students will take a curated lineup of courses for two years and then transfer to UM-Dearborn and finish the remainder of their education coursework online. But unlike traditional education students, they will be able to complete the 600 clinical hours required by the state - including two apprenticeships and 300 hours of student teaching - in their local communities, eliminating the need for temporarily relocating and uprooting their lives.

In many ways, DeFauw and Larson say the inventiveness of this new program owes a lot to the innovations that happened during the pandemic, when online education was thrust upon everyone, like it or not. That wasn't always an ideal situation, but it did lead faculty to question many assumptions about what parts of the educational experience actually needed to be in-person. After the pandemic fog cleared, online and hybrid sections of courses persisted, partly because that's what students said they wanted and partly because instructors found increasingly effective ways to teach online. DeFauw says faculty in her department had been kicking around the idea of a mostly online elementary education program for a few years, but the feedback they were hearing from community colleges in rural areas really provided a nudge to make this program happen. "I was just at an event in February where all the Teachers of the Year come together. And I heard from so many of our rural teachers who said they've never even been asked to have a student teacher in their classroom," DeFauw says. She also sees other potential benefits from the online format. For example, in a typical program, faculty conduct classroom observations during a student's student teaching experience. With the Jackson College transfer students, classroom observations will be recorded so UM-Dearborn faculty can provide feedback. "I think this is going to end up being even more powerful," DeFauw says. "I might be giving a student feedback, like, 'That was really great when you stopped and defined this vocabulary word as you were working through this subject.' But the student might not remember that moment. When you're teaching in the moment, it can all be kind of a blur. So they can go back and look at the video. They can actually see themselves teaching. That's going to be pretty incredible."

DeFauw and Larson are hoping Jackson College, where students will start the 2+2 program in Fall 2026, will be just the beginning. They're currently speaking with three other community colleges in other parts of rural Michigan, including in the Upper Peninsula. "I'm working on articulation agreements all the time, and we're very excited about this. But we're emphasizing quality over quantity," Larson says. "This is new. So we'd rather have four or five strategic community college partners that we build with and then kind of expand. No one wants students to fall through the cracks."

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Story by Lou Blouin

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