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U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine 2nd District
March 17, 2021
Golden introduces bill to address rural teacher shortage
U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, D-2nd District, is co-sponsoring a bipartisan bill aimed at reducing the shortage of educators in Maine and nationwide.
The bill, formally known as the Rural Education Investment Act, was introduced Tuesday in the U.S. House of Representatives by Golden and U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill.
The legislation aims to tackle address teacher shortages in rural schools by requiring the U.S. Department of Education to increase the share of Teacher Quality Partnership grant funding for rural areas so that it is equal to the percentage of K-12 students living in a rural area.
The program allows teachers to be placed in a full-time classroom clinical practice while completing master’s degree-level coursework, but only a handful of these grants go to rural schools.
Though it's a great program, Golden said, "Rural schools see so few TQP grants that so many of their students simply don’t get the benefits. More than half of Maine kids attend rural schools, and they deserve access to the same great teachers as their peers in cities."
He added that the measure seeks to rebalance the federal grant program so that rural schools get their fair share of funds to hire talented new educators and address workforce shortages.
“Our children are the next generation of leaders and deserve access to a quality education, regardless of where they live,” said Bost. “While we are blessed to have many wonderful educational professionals, we must find new ways to address this shortage and give rural areas the tools they need to recruit and retain qualified teachers.”
The act is supported by the Washington, D.C.-based National Education Association, which estimates that 9.3 million children in the United States, or one out of five, attend a rural school.
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