The U.S. Department of Education has canceled over $600 million in teacher training grants across the country.
That’s impacting universities in the Triad.
Winston-Salem TEACH is a partnership between Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem State University and Salem College working to create a pipeline of quality teachers for local high-need public schools.
The bulk of their funding — about 80% — comes from a Teacher Quality Partnership grant provided by the U.S. Department of Education. Last week, their $4.7 million grant was unexpectedly canceled.
Winston-Salem TEACH Executive Director Kate Allman says that funding was largely used to pay stipends to students in school to become educators.
“So the stipends allow them to focus on learning about how to be an excellent teacher, and that can be their sole focus as they go through their master's program, instead of having to juggle that on top of working," she says.
And when students receive that stipend, they agree to serve for three years in a local Title 1 school, where the majority of children come from low-income backgrounds.
“It's going to immediately impact our Title 1 schools and our ability to put really excellent teachers there," she says.
Winston-Salem TEACH had planned to admit 34 finalists into its third cohort last week. Now, Allman says they’re scrambling to reallocate funding to cover their stipends, and seeking out additional support from the community.
The grant was supposed to end in 2027, so Allman says the cancellation came as a complete surprise.
“I thought teacher training grants, particularly that were investing in high-need and Title 1 schools, would be protected since that's such a big need, but we were one of the first cuts," Allman says.
Winston-Salem State University says the notification that the grant had been canceled stated that the program promotes or takes part in DEI initiatives.
At High Point University, a spokesperson says grant cancellations will impact 88 graduate-level education majors as well.
Amy Diaz covers education for WFDD in partnership with Report For America. You can follow her on Twitter at @amydiaze.