In November 2019, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) announced the Aspiring to Educate (A2E) program and its intention to pilot the program in the Philadelphia area. The goals of A2E include diversifying and developing the state’s teacher workforce. The Philadelphia pilot included grants to six universities and the Center for Black Educator Development to engage in programming to expose students to the teaching profession/pathways, as well as a grant to Temple University to regularly convene a range of stakeholders in an A2E-focused workgroup.
This final report on the A2E pilot for PDE describes A2E’s goals and the overall structure of the pilot; A2E activities that took place in 2020; highlights and innovations; and learnings from the pilot that could inform the creation of similar initiatives to diversify and develop the teacher workforce. The report concludes with a set of future considerations for PDE based on recommendations from stakeholders around supports, conditions, and policy changes needed within the teacher workforce ecosystem, to support the success of development and diversification initiatives.
