MERIDIAN, Idaho — Finding qualified and available teachers for Idaho’s rural schools is already difficult enough, but with cuts to federal grants that help sponsor educators to be in these classrooms, Idaho’s education leaders are speaking out.
“It’s hard enough right now to recruit people to be educators,” said Tony Ashton, the Executive Director of the Idaho chapter of Teach for America, based in Meridian.
Teach for America is an AmeriCorp organization that works to provide resources to rural and vulnerable Idaho communities.
Recently terminated federal grants are now affecting these efforts, as Ashton’s Meridian-based team sees $35,000 dollars in cuts.
Loss of this federal funding jeopardizes the placement of about 2,500 new teachers nationwide, including many here in Idaho.
“Many of our teachers are also the first in their family to graduate from college,” said Ashton. "One of the main reasons they’re able to do that is because they can use this award to help pay off the debt that they incurred. So it’s going to be hard for those students to be educators."
Ashton tells Idaho News 6 that for every $1 invested in these programs, $17 goes back into local economies they serve, and funding cuts like these could only hurt children's educational progress.
While Teach for America navigates these funding cuts, it’ll focus on insulating funds for current teachers in order to retain teaching talent in vulnerable Idaho communities.
“There’s a lot that these AmeriCorps programs are doing in our community that we don’t notice, right? Whether that’s providing rural healthcare or educators,” said Ashton.
