The Death of the "Unpaid Student Teacher"

dlaufenberg — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 14:03:06 GMT

A recent 2026 report from Higher Ed Dive notes a steady decline in traditional education enrollments, while "Grow Your Own" and paid residency programs, according to the National Center for Teacher Residencies, are seeing a 12% increase.

For Discussion: Is the unpaid clinical semester an outdated relic of vocational gatekeeping? If your institution moved to a 100% paid residency model tomorrow, how would that change the quality and diversity of your candidate pool?

Re: The Death of the "Unpaid Student Teacher"

DrRBlevins — Tue, 19 May 2026 15:29:51 GMT

Our state is looking to move beyond the unpaid student teacher model, we already have Grow Your Own and Job-Embedded pathways. We have started Clinical Practice Permits where student teachers can be hired during the student teaching semester or internship year, but most have really struggled with this. I honestly don't mind paying student teachers as long as they are still being looked at as STUDENT teachers. The clinical practice permit has moved them to the teacher of record before they have finished their degree. The job-embedded pathway is having them as teacher of record while they are learning to teach taking classes at the graduate level. We need to be really careful with what we are asking/requiring of students on top of coursework for them to get paid. I also think there needs to be a very carefully worked out plan for who is paying, how they are reporting, who is evaluating, etc. Student teaching is supposed to be formative with a backup for help. It is a gradual release model. If it becomes a paid model, how will performance impact future opportunities? Again, I am not against it, I just want to make sure the student teachers are protected and given the opportunity to grow without it having major employment consequences, especially when you have kids coming into college with a 2 year degree already. You can very easily have student teachers who are 19 and are still growing in who they are as people, much less what kind of teacher they are going to become.

topic The Death of the "Unpaid Student Teacher" in Education, Arts, & Design GFG

The Death of the "Unpaid Student Teacher"

Re: The Death of the "Unpaid Student Teacher"