Editor’s Note: This post is from our data newsletter, the Rural Index, headed by Sarah Melotte, the Daily Yonder’s data reporter. We will be taking the next edition off as we head into Christmas. Subscribe to stay in touch with us during the New Year.
Compared to their urban and suburban counterparts, a greater share of the rural population lives in states with the most restrictive abortion legislation, according to my analysis of data from the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that focuses on reproductive rights. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of 2022, it became harder for women to access reproductive care, but the burden often disproportionately hurt rural women.
About 46% of nonmetropolitan, or rural, Americans live in states with either ‘most restrictive’ or ‘very restrictive’ abortion legislation, representing 21.3 million people. Approximately 35% of metro Americans live in these states, representing roughly 99.1 million people.
State-level abortion legislation is complex; it’s rarely as simple as an outright ban or permit. Abortion policies can include stipulations like waiting periods, ultrasound requirements, gestational duration bans, insurance coverage bans, telehealth bans, and more. To deal with some of this complexity, the Guttmacher dataset groups states into one of seven categories that broadly captures the state’s access to abortion:
Seventeen states make up the ‘Most Restrictive’ category, and 13 of those states have enacted full bans with few exceptions. Those states include Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. The rural population in those states equals about 15.8 million people.
Rurality Exacerbates Access Challenges
In the Post-Roe landscape, pre-existing rural challenges are exacerbated by restrictive abortion legislation, a change that has led to increased maternal mortality, particularly for women of color. The new state of abortion in America means people often have to travel much further to get the care they need, often out of state.
An ABC special that featured women who had to travel for abortions highlighted the story of Idaho resident Jennifer Adkins, who was excited when she found out she was pregnant with her first baby. But a 12-week ultrasound showed that continuing her pregnancy would put her life in danger. With financial help from family and friends, Adkins had to travel to the nearest clinic in Oregon to receive the care she needed.
My previous analysis of abortion data showed that rural travel to abortion clinics increased from 103 miles on average in 2021 to 159 miles on average after Roe v. Wade was overturned. But travel distance varies by state, with women in parts of rural South Texas having to travel up to almost 800 miles to receive care.
In rural Louisiana, where all the bordering states have also issued abortion bans, the distance to a clinic has increased by almost 400 miles since Roe was overturned. The average rural Louisianan is about 492 miles away from the nearest abortion clinic. The data for that analysis came from the Myers Abortion Facility Database.
In 2024, approximately 12,000 Texans traveled to New Mexico to receive an abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute data. Nearly 7,000 Texans traveled to Kansas, and another 4,000 traveled to Colorado. Texas enacted a near total ban on abortions in July of 2022. In Idaho, which enacted an abortion ban in August of 2022, 440 people travel to Washington and 140 travel to Oregon for abortions in 2024. (Visit the Guttmacher’s interactive map of abortion travel by state to explore the topic in more detail.)
Abortion and Rural Voters: More Complex Than You Might Think
Every time I write something about how rural people suffer from GOP policies, I get comments and emails from readers saying some version of, “They voted for this.” I take issue with this response for many reasons. It’s unkind, and it erases the thousands of rural voters who don’t support these policies. While some people are going to say you get what you deserve, here’s another way to look at it.
In a previous analysis of voting data from the nine states that had abortion on a ballot measure in 2024, I found that support for Trump didn’t always line up with support for abortion restriction. In 2024, approximately 73% of rural voters supported Trump, but only 61% voted to restrict abortion access.
While 61% is still a majority vote, the 12-point gap between support for Trump and support for abortion restriction demonstrates that abortion access is a complicated issue for many Americans across the geographic spectrum. This data shows a rural voting base that is willing to split with the broader Republican platform on key issues.
“All voters are complex,” said Nicholas Jacobs, rural sociologist. “People voted for [Trump], even if they wanted more access to reproductive care or were disappointed that a national standard was lifted by the courts.”
Nursing apprenticeships are starting to fix a broken career ladder, amid national shortage
This story was produced in partnership with Work Shift and reprinted with permission.
MOBILE, Ala. — Three or four times a week, LaTyra Malone starts her day at Mobile Infirmary hospital at 6:30 a.m. For the next 12 hours, she makes her rounds and visits with patients — asking if they’re in pain, checking vitals, administering fluids. To an outside observer, she appears to be a nurse.
But Malone, 37, is a registered nurse apprentice. Everything she has learned how to do in her nursing classes at Coastal Alabama Community College, she can do at the hospital under the supervision of registered nurse Ondrea Berry, her journeyworker — a term typically used in the skilled trades. Unlike most nursing students who complete their required clinical hours in groups for no pay, Malone gets paid as an employee with benefits. She also gets much more personalized, hands-on learning time.
“It’s like having a little kid attached to your leg all day,” Berry joked.
For Malone, the partnership is invaluable.
“I learn so much more one-on-one,” Malone said. “I might know the basics of disease processes or why we’re giving a certain medicine, but hearing her break it down to me helps a lot.”
The pair work largely as a team, alternating duties to allow Malone a chance to observe and practice. By now, Malone knows the ropes pretty well: In addition to her apprenticeship training and classes, she has 16 years of experience as a certified nursing assistant and a medical assistant. And Berry, who is 25, says she benefits from the working relationship too. “There are teaching moments for both of us,” she said.
Degreed nursing apprenticeships, like the one in Alabama, have emerged nationally as a potential solution to a thorny problem. The national nursing shortage is creeping toward crisis levels, with the demand for RNs like Berry and licensed practical nurses, or LPNs, projected to outstrip the supply for at least the next decade. At the same time, tens of thousands of people like Malone are already working in patient care in hospitals. Many aspire to be nurses — in fact, many certified nursing assistant programs sell the idea that you can start there, quickly land a job and then continue on to become a nurse.
But in reality, that’s a huge leap that requires an entirely different admissions process and English, math and science prerequisites that many nursing assistants don’t have. It also assumes that someone working an eight- or 12-hour shift for $18 an hour can find the time and the money for more education.
“The sort of ‘we are excellent’ ethos in nursing might be self-defeating in that it is weeding out a lot of people who would be amazing nurses,” said Iris Palmer, director for community colleges with the education policy program at New America.
Ondrea Berry, left, dispenses medication at Mobile Infirmary hospital while LaTyra Malone looks on. As an apprentice, Malone must be supervised by Berry at all times. Credit: Mike Kittrell for Work Shift
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Several states, including Texas, North Carolina and Wisconsin, have begun growing registered apprenticeships in nursing — which have approval from the U.S. Department of Labor — to help address this problem. But no state has done quite as much as Alabama in scaling the model.
In 2021, the Alabama Board of Nursing worked with the state legislature to create a nursing apprenticeship license. Normally, nursing students are not licensed until after they graduate and pass a national licensure exam, and therefore they can’t be paid for their supervised clinical hours. The new apprenticeship license allows them to earn while they learn, making nursing school much more accessible for students like Malone and helping to fill critical staffing needs in hospitals.
Since the law passed, 80 employers and 28 colleges and universities in Alabama have jointly created LPN and RN apprenticeship programs for those who are still working toward a degree. Nearly 450 apprentices — the great majority RNs — have completed the program and passed their exam, with more than 500 currently apprenticing. It’s too soon to say whether apprenticeships will solve the nursing shortage in the state, but early data shows benefits for employers and aspiring nurses alike.
Mobile Infirmary has had over 90 nursing apprentices since the hospital’s program began in 2022, first with the LPN apprenticeship and soon after with the RN one. Graduates are required to stay at the hospital for one year after the apprenticeship ends, but most are staying beyond that. Only five have left so far, according to Stefanie Willis-Turner, the director of nursing school partnership and programs at Mobile Infirmary.
The hospital, like many others, already offered tuition reimbursement for employees who wanted to go back to college and move into nursing or another higher-level position. But such programs have notoriously low uptake, in part because most low-income employees can’t front the cost of tuition and also because many don’t know what steps to take.
“It amazed me the number of people that wanted to go back to school but didn’t really know where to get started,” Willis-Turner said. “Having a person to help guide them has really been our trigger, and that’s how we run this program.”
LaTyra Malone is a two-time apprentice at Mobile Infirmary hospital. Last year, she worked with Ondrea Berry as a licensed practical nurse apprentice while she earned the certification. This year, she is a registered nurse apprentice. Credit: Mike Kittrell for Work Shift
Willis-Turner played a crucial role in recruiting Malone for the apprenticeship. Malone has wanted to be a nurse since she was a teenager when she was president of her high school’s chapter of HOSA-Future Health Professionals, a global student-led organization that promotes careers in health care. But her plans to become a registered nurse were delayed when she became a mother. The financial burden plus the rigid schedules of nursing school made it difficult to make room for parenting, working and studying.
With the apprenticeship, Malone doesn’t have to worry about paying for college, and she can provide for her family while improving her nursing skills. Her path stands in stark contrast to that of Berry, who worked at Dairy Queen throughout nursing school to pay for tuition and health insurance. Berry didn’t have kids to take care of, but she also didn’t have financial support from anyone else in her family. Her only on-the-job training in nursing school was the clinical hours, where she joined a group of students who took turns practicing new skills with just one nurse. Berry says she only attempted two IVs in that time. Malone has done so many she can’t count.
About 75 percent of the apprentices at Mobile Infirmary over the last three years were already working at the hospital. The rest came from surrounding medical facilities. Some even quit their jobs to transfer to Mobile Infirmary for a better chance at getting into the apprenticeship program. In addition to paying students for their work, Mobile Infirmary pays for any tuition that isn’t covered by scholarships or grants. The hospital also provides two uniforms free of charge. And students know they have a guaranteed job after they graduate and pass the nursing exam.
This kind of targeted support is what makes the best apprenticeships successful in boosting individual economic mobility, its advocates say. Another key factor is the type of job an apprenticeship prepares people for. Most health care apprenticeships are for entry-level roles like CNAs, patient care technicians and medical assistants — jobs that, on average, pay $18-$20 an hour.
About half of states offer apprenticeships for LPNs, who make about 50 percent more than that, and half do so for RNs, whose median salaries are close to six figures, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor. But far fewer apprentices are in those LPN and RN programs — and the majority of RN apprenticeships are for nurses who already have degrees, not for those who are still learning. That means aspiring nurses must still get all the way through the financial and logistical obstacles of nursing school before they can start to work.
Josh Laney helped set up the different model in Alabama when he was director of the state’s Office of Apprenticeship. For a long time, he said, he bought into the “urban legend” that training more people to be certified nursing assistants, especially when they’re young, would get people onto the path to becoming nurses.
“The pitch was, ‘We get you the certificate and then you’re going to work at a hospital because it’s a very high-demand occupation. From there you can go on and move into nursing or whatever else you want to do,’” Laney said. “But there was no specified plan for how to do that — just a low-wage, very stressful and strenuous job.”
The data backs that up. A 2018 study of federal Health Profession Opportunity Grants for CNA training showed that only 3 percent of those who completed the training went on to pursue further education to become an LPN or RN. Only 1 percent obtained an associate degree or above. A study in California showed slightly better odds: 22 percent of people who completed certificate programs at community colleges to become CNAs went on to get a higher-level credential in health care, but only 13 percent became registered nurses within six years.
Because of these outcomes, Laney refused to pursue apprenticeships for CNAs in Alabama. One reason apprenticeships for CNAs and medical assistants are common, however, is that they are jobs that don’t require degrees and have fewer regulations when it comes to training. Setting up a registered apprenticeship for nurses who don’t already have a bachelor’s degree is complex and requires the work of many entities — the nursing board, colleges and employers.
When he went to the state board of nursing to propose LPN and RN apprenticeships, Laney was initially shut down.
“To their credit, they said, ‘Go away, bureaucrat! You’re not industry, you’re not the employer. You don’t really have anything to do with this,’” he recalled. “What I learned there, and what I’ve recommended to every other state who’s tried this, is let the employers carry your water. If they want it, they’ll get it done.”
Laney then talked to the Alabama Hospital Association and Alabama Nursing Home Association, to reach employers. Given the shortages they had been experiencing, they bought into the idea and approached the nursing board themselves. Next, Laney’s team got community colleges on board, then universities. With the assurance that apprenticeships wouldn’t cut down on any of the required classes and clinical hours, the nursing board agreed to create the new license, following legislative approval.
Other states embarking on nursing apprenticeships have faced similar challenges.
Apprenticeships aren’t a panacea. They hold promise for creating upward mobility, diversifying the profession and improving the odds a student makes it through to graduation, but they can’t solve all the knotty challenges of the nursing shortage. A lack of instructors in nursing schools — and therefore a lack of available seats for qualified students — is still one of the biggest factors. And in the apprenticeship model, every student needs one-on-one mentorship, meaning hospitals must have enough staff available and willing to work in a mentoring role for up to a year.
Jay Prosser, executive director of the Massachusetts Nursing Council on Workforce Sustainability, knows all that. But he thinks apprenticeships will bring in more “practice-ready” nurses who are more likely to stay in the field long-term, especially those who were already working in patient care in the United States or other countries. Massachusetts is on the cusp of starting a licensed practical nurse apprenticeship with one employer and one academic partner, after working with the state nursing board and colleges for the past year. Unlike in Alabama, the nursing board didn’t need to create a new license, but rather the board judges whether educational programs meet regulations or not.
The Massachusetts Nursing Council on Workforce Sustainability is also creating a nursing apprenticeship network in the state, to make it easier for different institutions and programs to exchange ideas.
Prosser said one of the biggest barriers was making sure that the scope of practice for apprentices was clearly defined. He worked with local colleges to make sure of this. Prosser had previously worked as an assistant chief nursing officer in Birmingham, Alabama, and moved to Massachusetts in 2021 with the idea of apprenticeships already in mind.
Several other states have also created nursing apprenticeships for students who don’t already have a degree, but they’re limited to single institutions. In 2023, Texas began offering nursing apprenticeships for students who hadn’t already earned a degree in a collaboration between South Texas College and the Texas Workforce Commission.
The University of Wisconsin Health system has created a portfolio of nine registered apprenticeship programs, including an RN program launched in 2023 and a handful of other apprenticeship-style programs. Bridgett Willey, director of allied health education and career pathways, said the hospital started with entry-level apprenticeships, like medical assistants, before proposing degreed programs.
“There’s still kind of a myth that the colleges are going to do all this on their own,” Willey said. “Well, that’s not true. Employers have to sponsor, because we’re the ones hiring the apprentices and often supporting tuition costs, as well.”
The outcomes from the entry-level apprentice programs helped convince the health system that it was worth investing more. A three-year study showed that staff retention rates for those who participated in the hospital’s apprenticeships were 22% higher than for those who didn’t. In the two-year-old RN program, attrition is less than 10% so far — significantly lower than the attrition rate the hospital has seen with traditional students who participate in clinicals at the hospital.
UW Health supports efforts to scale their apprenticeship model across the state, but so far they haven’t panned out. Willey said employers are interested, but conversations often stall when questions arise about how to create more clinical capacity and find funding sources to support apprentices.
Even so, Eric Dunker, founding executive director of the National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree, which is affiliated with Reach University, predicts that nursing apprenticeships are about to see major growth, as teaching apprenticeships did five years ago. Earlier this year, Reach University received a $1 million grant to expand apprenticeships in behavioral health, and is planning for nursing ones. The strict licensing regulations for nursing make it more complicated than scaling up teaching apprenticeships, but Dunker sees the possibility of expanding them if nursing boards, colleges and employers all come to the table, as they did in Alabama.
“There’s a lot of entry-level health care apprenticeships,” Dunker said. “But the key is upward mobility, which is nursing and nurse practitioners. There’s typically been a bottleneck in stacking these pathways, but that’s where you’re starting to see more states and systems become a little more creative.”
Tyler Sturdivant, Coastal Alabama Community College’s associate dean of nursing, knows what that looks like. Figuring out the logistics of setting up an apprenticeship program was a challenge, he said, and required hiring an additional staff member to liaise between the college and hospital partners. But three years into the apprenticeship program for LPNs and RNs, the school is seeing higher completion rates than for traditional students.
This means they’re producing more licensed nurses to fill positions and someday mentor, or even teach, other apprentices.
On a typical Friday morning in September at Mobile Infirmary, Malone and Berry visited a 70-year-old man who came in for a urinary tract infection that then weakened him. That day, the apprentice and journeyworker switched out his bed for one lower to the ground to reduce the fall risk, taught him how to raise the bed so he could sit upright, updated him on a plan for physical therapy and adjusted his socks for him.
Malone appeared comfortable and confident, taking the lead in the patient’s care while Berry assisted her. Malone says the many hours of practice she’s had through the apprenticeship has made her feel prepared for the job and ready to continue to follow her dreams. One day, she wants to become a nurse practitioner specializing in mental health.
“I won’t feel complete until I actually become a nurse,” Malone says. “I thought I was going to be one sooner, but bumps in the road happened and I ended up having a child. If it wasn’t for the apprenticeship, I probably wouldn’t be here now.”
Contact editor Lawrie Mifflin at 212-678-4078 or on email at mifflin@hechingerreport.org.
This story was produced in partnership with Work Shift and reprinted with permission.
Many high school seniors are currently in the midst of the college application process or are already waiting to hear back from their selected schools.
For high school students in rural parts of the United States, the frantic pace of the college application process can look a bit different. For starters, some of these rural students might not have large numbers of elite universities and colleges coming to admissions fairs in their areas. They might not have all of the required high school courses to attend some of these schools, either, according to Sheneka Williams, a scholar of educational leadership and rural education who graduated from a small, rural high school in Alabama.
Amy Lieberman, the education editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Williams to understand the particular experiences of rural students – and what, exactly, coming from a rural background can mean as students think about college.
How are rural high school students’ experiences unique?
Nationally, nearly 10 million students – or 1 in 5 public school students in the U.S. – attended rural schools in the fall of 2022.
While approximately 90% of rural high school students graduated in 2020, 82% of urban high school students got their diplomas that year.
But rural students’ college entrance rate is lower than that of urban and suburban students.
Within four years of graduating high school, 71% of rural students attended college, compared to 73% of suburban and 71% of city students who also went to college, according to 2023 findings by the National Center for Education Statistics.
First, we know that some colleges are not really recruiting students in rural areas. If these universities don’t know you exist, and if your parents haven’t gone to college and don’t know how the admission system works, you might not have help as you move closer to attending college. Some rural schools also do not have college counselors.
There are other reasons why some rural high school graduates are not going to college, I have personally seen. Some students are apprehensive about leaving home. They have close-knit families and communities, and they might be wondering where they fit in at a school in a large place that is much bigger than where they grew up.
Do any of these scenarios describe your own educational journey?
I grew up in a small town in Alabama and was different from some of the other Black students, since I came from a family of educators who had gone to college for two generations.
But when I did go to college, I went to a campus that was two times the size of my hometown, which has a population of just 12,000. It takes a confident student, as well as encouragement from parents or mentors, to believe that you can go to school away from home.
We had some college fairs in high school, but the visiting colleges were state universities and regional schools. You did not have selective schools coming to recruit.
Students today can learn about schools online, but there is still the issue that universities are not, on their own, connecting enough with rural students.
Do rural students fit into universities’ diversity goals?
Only recently have people begun to think and talk more about what rural really means. Some people use the U.S. Census Bureau’s definition of rural, which is “all population, housing, and territory not included within an urban area.”
But that’s a somewhat surface definition. It’s hard for some scholars to agree on what counts as rural, including me. It feels like something you have to experience and know, and that is hard to define. Part of the issue is that rural has been defined by what urban is not, and that makes it seem it doesn’t deserve its own definition.
Universities are beginning to think about these rural students more and the particular challenges they experience in school. That includes not necessarily having stable access to high-speed internet, which approximately 22.3% of Americans in rural areas and 27.7% of Americans in tribal areas don’t have, compared to only 1.5% of Americans in urban areas.
Another issue is that even for rural students who want to go to college, they might not have the right qualifications, such as certain courses they have completed.
I am currently involved in research with sociologists Barbara Schneider and education scholars Joe Krajcik and Clausell Mathis about how some rural high schools in Alabama and Mississippi aren’t able to teach physics or chemistry. Physics and chemistry are both gateway courses to college, and if you want to be an engineer or STEM major, you have to complete these courses in order to have a shot at certain colleges.
Rural high schools tend to have a lack of resources, in terms of both budget and their staffing. Schools not being able to find teachers who are qualified or certified in certain subject areas, such as science courses, is a nationwide problem. But this issue is tougher in smaller, rural towns.
Schools will say they don’t have students interested in those subjects. But the states also aren’t requiring that these classes are offered.
This lack of science course offerings can create a whole block of students who are not going to college. And if we are talking about the South, in particular, and states that have a high population of Black students in rural areas, we are talking about a whole swath of students who don’t have this education and would find it a struggle to get into larger, splashier schools that are not near home.
High school students in rural areas might not have access to the same classes or technology that peers in suburban and urban areas do. iStock/Getty Images Plus
What do you think are some of the solutions to these challenges?
There are many local efforts to offer tutoring and things of that nature for rural high school students. Some of those efforts have been blunted because schools are funded by property taxes, and some of them just don’t have the revenue to pay for these add-ons without federal support.
I think colleges need to do a better job of recruiting students at rural high schools. I also think that once these students make it to college, it would help if there were support or affinity groups.
Some colleges have not thought enough about rural students. I think the narrative around rural students and college needs to shift – these students may want to go to college, but nobody is looking for them. When you live in small, geographically isolated places, sometimes you only know what you see.
Sheneka Williams receives funding from the U.S. Department of Education.
Black Alabama Mayor Once Blocked by White Town Leaders Wins Reelection
NEWBERN, Ala. — On a quiet, sunny morning, Gabrielle Cook and her 20-year-old son Mark Cabil walked into their town hall to cast their ballots in an election that would decide the future of their rural Alabama town.
For the first time in Newbern’s history, the citizens of this majority-Black town got to participate directly in the democratic process. The incumbent Mayor Patrick Braxton defeated his opponent Laird Cole 66 to 27. Braxton was Cook and Cabil’s top choice.
“Newbern hasn’t really had a mayor in a long time … so it feels good to have something happening here, to have somebody that can actually lead us in a good direction,” Cabil said before the results were in.
Cook and the 177 other registered voters were choosing between incumbent Braxton, who is Black and Cole, who is a white. The second race on the ballot is for council seat 1 between two Black women, Patricia A. Jackson and Voncille Brown Thomas. Jackson defeated Brown Thomas 64 to 27. Brown Thomas was the only Black woman who served on the majority-white council prior to Braxton’s election in 2020.
Shortly after Tuesday night’s win, Braxton told Capital B: “It feels good now. It takes all the doubt out. The judge gave it me [last year]. The people gave it to me this time.”
Five years ago, Braxton, a volunteer firefighter, won the election after being the only person to file his statement of candidacy and statement of economic interest.
Yet, he never got to serve until last year. After he won in 2020, he says he was harassed and faced intimidation by the former, majority-white Town Council. He finally got to serve as a result of a settlement reached in federal court in July 2024.
Earlier in the day, Cook said she knew she had to get out and vote because finally, “we have a voice in who becomes mayor.”
She grew up seeing her mom, a Newbern resident, vote in elections in neighboring Perry County. Newbern is in Hale County. Cook, a mother of seven, had never known or seen any mayor in her hometown prior to 2020.
Her son hopes through Braxton’s leadership, the town will “get more stores and maybe even renew our park for the kids. Maybe we could even get a police department here, because right now we only get sheriffs and state troopers who rarely come down.”
Before the election, the Alabama Conference of Black Mayors said in a statement, no matter who won, this is an era where “monarchy ends” and that marks the beginning of a new chapter for the town.
“This transformation is a testament to the enduring power of hope, perseverance, and collective action,” the statement read. “As we gather here, let us remember that the right to vote is both a privilege and a duty. May this day stand as a beacon of hope, not only for Newbern but for communities everywhere that strive for freedom, fairness, and democracy.”
“What the people want”
Patrick Braxton filerd a federal civil rights lawsuit that accused Newbern, Alabama, officials of conspiring to deny his civil rights and his position because of his race. (Dev Allen/Capital B)
After leaving the town hall, Cook dropped off a family member, Byron Cook, 41, to cast his vote in the election. For him, the responsibility has never felt more important, after “how they did Patrick” a few years ago, he said.
After Braxton was sworn in as the Newbern’s first Black mayor, council members, which included Brown Thomas, locked him out of the town hall and reappointed themselves to their positions after ordering a special election that no one knew about, according to court documents. He filed a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing town officials of conspiring to deny his civil rights and his position because of his race.
Now, Braxton is ready to hear from the people and not the courts and hopes to serve a full term this time.
“I’ll know the people put me there this time, not the court,” he told Capital B hours before the results were in. “That’s the main thing the people — what the people want.”
With Braxton only serving one year, Byron Cook said he wanted to give him a chance to show what he can really do for the community.
“He’s someone who has always been around, very grassroots, talking to everybody, checking on people, making sure they’re OK. When you find people like that in life, you want to do something to show that you appreciate them,” Byron Cook said. “I would love to see the community come together like he’s always done. He’s been bringing people together long before he became mayor, and now is the chance to really do that.”
On Tuesday morning, Braxton sat across the street from the town hall in his straw hat, campaign T-shirt and blue jeans. He didn’t have any campaign signs. He was calm and quiet in between taking phone calls, waving as people drive by or stopping to make conversation after they leave the polls.
Over the past few months, Braxton had knocked on doors, made speeches at church, and placed a few campaign signs in the yards. He’s shared the progress he and his council Braxton have made.
They partnered with the Equal Justice Initiative to bring a mobile grocery truck to the town, which does not have a grocery store. The only store in town, the Mercantile, closed in 2024. This effort with EJI helped bring fresh produce and groceries to dozens of residents at discounted prices.
This has caused some tension with mostly white residents.
Laird Cole is running against Braxton to be Newbern’s next mayor. (Facebook)
Cole, his opponent in this mayoral race, is suing the town of Newbern and others, alleging the project is illegally dumping untreated sewage onto his residential property. He didn’t respond to Capital B’s questions about the lawsuit.
On Election Day, Cole sat only a few feet away from Braxton, relaxing in his lounge chair near his truck and also waving to people as they drove by. He was surrounded by campaign signs and played popular hip-hop songs such as “Swag Surfing” and “My Hitta” on speaker.
Although he was hesitant to speak to Capital B, he did make it clear that he was ready to lead Newbern. He mentioned his decades of experiences as a businessman and his service, such as providing equipment to help maintain the nearby baseball field. He also recently purchased Sunshine High School, which closed in 2016,which he hopes to use to provide athletics for students who are homeschooled.
Whether he won or not, he said he was still committed to the betterment of the town.
Voncille Brown Thomas (left) and Patricia A. Jackson were facing off for a seat on the Newbern Town Council. (Aallyah Wright/Capital B)
Brown Thomas, who has served on the Town Council for over 25 years, was once again vying for a council seat. Even though she was named in Braxton’s lawsuit alleging harassment, she said those “allegations were not against me, however, the law determined that he was right.”
The retired school teacher, who now works for the county sheriff’s office, said she also went door to door and spoke to citizens to let them know her intentions. She said she hopes to see the park improved and create a space for people to come together.
Patricia Jackson, the candidate who ran against Brown Thomas, said she was running because she loves Newbern and wants to see the town grow. She also wants everyone across racial lines to work together.
At a July 7, town council meeting, white residents and Black residents sat opposite one another. A couple of white residents made loud outbursts and made disruptions throughout the meeting, Capital B observed. Jackson referenced other town hall meetings where the sheriff’s office had to be called to conduct business.
“We stay here together. It ain’t but one race, and that’s the human race,” she said. “We got a long way to go. But with Braxton, me, it can happen. It really can.”
Regardless of the election outcome, many voters that Capital B spoke with shared their excitement about having an election at all.
“I really smile about it. It’s something that should have been happening way back. I’ve been in Newbern for over 50 years, and this is my first time ever voting for mayor,” said Barbara Carlisle, an elder in the community. “I think it’s great, really tremendous. I’m happy to do it.”
Welcome to Mile Markers, a bimonthly newsletter about rural higher education. I’m Nick Fouriezos, an Open Campus national reporter who grew up at the crossroads of suburban Atlanta and the foothills of Appalachia.
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A biweekly newsletter about higher education and rural America. By Nick Fouriezos.
Today’s Roadmap
01: Postcards: An employer-first approach
02: Roadside Attractions: DOGE’s impact
01: Postcards
Wallace State Community College, wedged an hour between Birmingham and Huntsville, faced the same challenges as many rural colleges.
Finding great instructors. Adjusting curriculums to fit employer needs. Reaching working students whose education paths aren’t always linear, and showing them the value of a degree.
Yet the Hanceville college has invested in ways that have led to outsize results, including …
$61,000 average wages for manufacturing and health care certificate earners, significantly more than the area’s median incomes around 40,000.
51% graduation rate, compared to the 35% national average
90% employment and licensure rates, also well above national averages
How did this college serving 8,000 students in Hanceville, Ala. get here?
An employer-first model
One key breakthrough has been putting employers at the center of nearly everything the college does, says Vicki Karolewics, President at Wallace State.
“Now, the focus is industry first,” Karolewics said. “Industry presents to us what skills they need, what areas of curriculum would be better suited.”
Take Wallace State’s massive welding center, which had its grand opening in 2023 and includes 81 welding and 20 grinding booths, as well as nine virtual welding simulators and other state-of-the-art equipment.
The college estimated the center would create nearly 100 new jobs and approximately $25 million in payroll revenue to the community in its first eight years — numbers that helped them get both local government and employer buy-in.
Including those stakeholders in the discussion was intentional. In fact, the college created a dedicated role for employer engagement and strategic partnerships.
That person acts as a full-time connector between faculty and local companies, keeping a continuous feedback loop that has helped shape curriculum content and course structures.
When manufacturers flagged upcoming labor shortages, Wallace invited companies to co-invest in the equipment and facilities.
Its led Wallace State to offer one of the most robust welding programs in the state, including becoming the only community college to offer robotic welding courses.
Preparing for Aerospace, and More
Wallace State now serves around 8,000 students a year through academic, technical, and workforce programs, and the college is looking to expansion toward the jobs of the future.
In addition to more aerospace jobs, Karolewics says the college expects growth in engineering, education and healthcare as well.
Like many rural areas, a growing teaching shortage is emerging across the region, which has led Wallace State to launch new apprenticeship programs in nearby K-12 classrooms.
It’s offered similar partnerships with hospitals, to help add to medical support services across north Alabama.
“Stackable Credentials” to Reflect Real-Life Complexities
Rural students often face education journeys interrupted by unsteady income and families that may need their financial or emotional support.
Wallace recognized that, and responded by creating hundreds of stackable credentials that allow students to earn meaningful certifications at any point in their educational path.
“A lot of students stop in and out. It’s not a smooth progression,” Karolewics says. “Now, even if they leave, they leave with value.”
Reducing Wasted Time and Money for Students
The college also worked to transform its academic advising through a Pathways initiative that creates clearer course maps for every program.
“What that has done, it’s allowed students to plan their future and it’s also eliminated additional hours that they were taking,” Karolewics says.
Before, the average student had completed 101 hours at graduation — despite the fact that a typical associate degree only requires a minimum of 60-64 credit hours.
With better advising and clearer transparency around course pathways, that number is now in the low 70s, representing significant savings for students.
Next, the college will be working to create four-year plans that map out not just courses at Wallace State, but also additional two-way pathways that extend to bachelor’s degree programs at transfer institutions.
Still, Wallace State hopes that even those students will invest back in Hanceville.
“Our students have a strong sense of community, and many of them don’t want to move to New York or Nashville,” Karolewics says.
By creating pathways to middle-class wages without requiring relocation, Wallace State is helping local students have a real alternative to leaving.
02: Roadside Attractions
DOGE threatens essential rural services. After DOGE cut over $400 million worth of AmeriCorps grants across the country, rural nonprofits will struggle to survive, according to the Daily Yonder, which took a deep look at the impacts on social services in rural Colorado.
California struggles to provide mental health. This CalMatters piece by Open Campus local reporter Adam Echelman looks into the challenges rural areas have in finding therapists, with a recent report finding that one-third of California’s residents live in an area with an insufficient ratio of providers to patients.
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After Years of Litigation, First Black Mayor in Rural Alabama Town Gets to Serve
Patrick Braxton is overwhelmed with gratitude.
He’s been juggling a yearslong legal battle to serve as the lawful mayor of his hometown, Newbern, Alabama. After years of harassment, his rural town enters a new chapter: Its first Black mayor will finally get to serve.
Braxton will be reinstated as mayor of Newbern, according to a proposed settlement reached on June 21. The settlement awaits the signature of U.S. District Judge Kristi K. DuBose.After 60 years of no elections, residents will get to exercise their right to vote. The town has also pledged to hold regular municipal elections beginning in 2025.
In nearly a year since Capital B was among the first to report on Braxton’s fight, he has garnered support locally and nationally.
On a recent morning in May, he traveled nearly three hours from his hometown to Mobile for a preliminary injunction hearing, asking the courts to demand the town hold regular elections in November.
When he and his council members arrived, they were met by a busload of more than 30 residents who also traveled nearly three hours to showcase their support.
In 2020, Braxton became the first Black mayor in Newbern and experienced harassment and intimidation for doing so. However, the previous majority-white town council blocked him from the post.
He and his council filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against them in 2022 for conspiring to deny his civil rights and position because of his race, challenging the racially discriminatory voting and electoral practices in Newbern in the process, Capital B previously reported.
For at least 60 years, there’s been no elections in this 80% Black town of fewer than 200 people, which Braxton’s attorneys argued is a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Act provides an avenue to challenge states and jurisdictions using racially discriminatory voting policies.
Since 2020, when Braxton ran for mayor, he says some white residents have moved away.
Though the court denied the request to hold an election in November, Braxton didn’t feel defeated. In fact, he felt optimistic.
“I knew I was gonna be able to serve again, you know,” he told Capital B in a phone call last week. “It’s just how long it was gonna take for us to get some kind of resolution first for this.”
This week, that long overdue resolution came.
When he received the news that he’d get reinstated, Braxton shared it with his pastor, who exclaimed, “Finally. It’s been a long time coming. You know if you pray, change will come.”
This win in Newbern is important because it shows citizens nationwide can still use the courts to be heard, despite the attacks on the Voting Rights Act, said Morenike Fajana, co-counsel on the case and senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund Inc.
“It’s important just to highlight Mayor Braxton’s tenacity, and the fact that this is a four-year battle that he’s had to fight in different courts and at different levels — and now finally, a court is going to say, ‘Yes, we agree. You were wronged. And you were the mayor,’” Fajana told Capital B. “I think that is very inspirational and important. And it’s also very sobering, just the amount of work that it takes and time that it takes to have your rights vindicated.”
Setbacks, frustration, and the will to keep fighting
For the past few years, it’s been a heap of long nights and early mornings for Braxton, a volunteer firefighter for years.
Not only was he locked out of the town hall and forced to fight fires alone, but he was also followed by a drone and denied access to the town’s mail and financial accounts, he told Capital B last year. Rather than concede, Haywood “Woody” Stokes III, the former white mayor, and his council members reappointed themselves to their positions after ordering a special election that no one knew about.
“It hurt my heart because I couldn’t do what I wanted to do,” Braxton said. “We had some plans to do some work in Newbern. … It might not have been the time for us to do it.”
The setback didn’t stop him, he said. He’s hosted several community events for the youth and the town’s elders. Two months ago, he used his personal funds to feed more than 125 people at his church, First Baptist. This week, he helped plan a Fun Day Out, a type of summer reading program, at the local library.
He’s also been working overtime to build a racially diverse city council amid the lawsuit. He wakes up early in the morning, knocking on doors and “running down people” to talk to him. In 2020, no white person seemed interested.
That has changed.
He will submit his list of interim council members to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey for confirmation. If the governor does not affirm the positions, she must notify the Hale County probate judge to declare a special election, which Braxton will administer, the settlement states.
One of those people: his “ride or die” Janice Quarles, a Newbern native and plaintiff who volunteered to serve on Braxton’s council in 2020.
The most stressful part of this journey for Quarles has been finding adequate legal representation and a listening ear to hear their concerns.
“It seemed as if we weren’t moving. It seemed to me as if we weren’t being heard,” Quarles said. “By being from such a small little town, I kind of felt like we weren’t getting enough attention. But eventually, we kept pushing and got into the courts.”
With the recent news, she is beyond “elated” and hopeful it will bring together the community across racial lines.
“We don’t do a lot of integrating. We don’t do too many things together. But I just feel that it’s gonna be a change because sometimes it has to work on both sides,” Quarles said. “I’m just filled with joy because … there always comes a time for change — everywhere in every country, every state, every city. And now the time has come for us here in Newbern.”
While this chapter is closed, the fight is not over, Braxton said. He’s hoping his journey will inspire others.
“Like I told the pastor, I’m not fighting for myself,” Braxton said. “I’m fighting for all the younger generations coming up behind me. They can do the same thing and be successful in this town. You don’t have to move away from your hometown just to accomplish something. We finally got the door open for me, so y’all can come in. I don’t want to hold this seat forever.”
How Black Rural Americans Navigate Internet Issues
This is the second story in Capital B’s “Disconnected: Rural Black America and the Digital Divide” project, which explores the disparate effects of broadband accessibility on Black Americans in the rural South. This project is made possible by a grant from The Center for Rural Strategies and Grist. You can read our first story, “Digital Redlining and the Black Rural South,” here.
SELMA, Ala. — On a warm afternoon in September, residents sit outside the Selma Dallas County Library, or in the parking lot in their cars, to connect their mobile phones to the library’s hotspot.
It’s rather quiet except for the sounds of muddled conversations and car engines in this Alabama town that became an epicenter for a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement. Less than a mile away from the library is the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the site of “Bloody Sunday” where 600 people were brutally battered and beaten by police officers for marching to secure voting rights. Nearly 60 years later, residents in the 84% Black town say they still struggle to obtain a basic service: adequate internet access.
Crystal Drye, who has worked at the library since the days of typewriters, says this is the norm. For some, it’s too costly to subscribe to internet service, the speeds are too slow, or they lack the skills to navigate an online landscape. As a solution, they stop by the library, said Drye, who serves as the technology director.
She knew the service became critical when residents came to watch funeral services, hop on Zoom calls, or watch graduation ceremonies. Even homeschooled students often utilize the resources. The library also purchased laptops and mobile hotspots to assist older residents and people with disabilities at their residences.
“I’ve taken our laptops to the nursing home so that a person can stream [church] service on Sunday,” Drye told Capital B. “I’ve taken it to a person to use to order their groceries when they need to because maybe they can’t drive to get it. … It’s nice that we can be a one-stop shop.”
This is a similar reality for millions of residents living without high-speed internet — especially Black folks in the rural South, where the digital divide is the greatest. In this region, about 38% of Black households don’t have home internet, a higher percentage than white people in the same region and the national average, a 2021 report from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies found. In Dallas County, where Selma is located, 17% of households do not have internet access, the same percentage statewide.
Over four months, I made several trips across Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi and spoke to about 30 residents, experts, and advocates. Here’s how the digital divide is disrupting their everyday lives.
The high costs of low speeds
When Hans Hageman moved from New York to the Mississippi Delta to lead the Tutwiler Community Education Center last year, he didn’t anticipate his internet would affect his productivity. On a daily basis, he juggles between whether his home in Rome, an unincorporated community, or the education center in Tutwiler would be better suited for Zoom or phone calls.
He’s missed out on potential funding opportunities because he can’t upload grant applications online due to slow speeds.
“It’s always top three on the list of, ‘Is this going to work today?’” Hageman said. “I have a meeting this weekend and I have to be prepared to close my stuff and drive real fast to see if I get a better connection to make a $25,000 ask to a foundation. I could be much more productive if I wasn’t doing that.”
He’s also noticed how the inadequate service limits opportunities for the youth to participate in virtual or global activities. Hageman signed up his students for a digital sports tournament to compete with youth nationwide. During a Zoom training ahead of the tournament, his students kept “dropping off of the call” due to bad internet connections, which forced them to miss out.
Some of the kids in the 79% Black town of 3,000, want to pursue careers in content creation, media, and photography. They have dreams of being fashion designers, chefs, and entrepreneurs. He’s also working to put together a robotics program and a drone pilot program. In the back of his mind, Hageman knows they “don’t have the bandwidth to pull this off” because of the challenges with broadband.
Unfortunately, it adds to the many reasons why they want to leave their town — a place described as a food, job, and medical desert. The only place to get food is the Double Quick gas station.
“When you’re talking to the kids, none of them want to stay, and some of it is because of their access,” Hageman told Capital B. “It breaks my heart because when they go off, they are having to play catch up.”
Despite the barriers, Hageman is on a mission to figure it out.
On a recent Saturday afternoon in November, Hans Hageman opens the gymnasium so kids can play basketball. (Charles Coleman)
At the height of the pandemic, nonprofit leader Gloria Dickerson learned that many families in her hometown of Drew, Mississippi — which is about 16 miles from Tutwiler and 11 miles from Rome — didn’t have access tocomputers or internet at home due to affordability.
The Sunflower County School District provided one mobile hotspot per household and one tablet per child. The costs of insurance — $5 for hotspot and $25 per tablet — rested on families. In households with multiple children, the fees were too costly, and one hotspot was simply not enough. Some children could not complete schoolwork at home, which caused some students to fall further behind, she said.
“Every child needs a computer at home. I see these computers as for information, but I also see it as a learning tool for the younger generation … to keep up with what’s going on in the world. Keep up with their homework. It’s just a necessity,” Dickerson said. “We can’t do it and expect these kids to thrive.”
Gloria Dickerson (center) shares the challenges of broadband availability in Drew, Mississippi, her hometown. (Aallyah Wright)
Dickerson, who runs We2gether Creating Change in downtown Drew, opened her doors for children to use computers, and purchased iPads for every student in her program. At her building, she had a stable internet connection. About five minutes away at her home, her internet service was poor.
“It got so bad that I couldn’t watch TV. Every 10 minutes, it would go off and say it couldn’t connect. I’d call, and they’ll say, ‘Well, we can’t find anything wrong with it, maybe you need to just hit the reset button,’” Dickerson said. “You just get so disconnected. Every time you start to send an email, all of sudden it goes down in the middle of sending an email. Did that email send? Should I resend the email? It’s a mess.”
The service, which costs $75 monthly, should be better for how expensive it is, she told Capital B in September. A month before, she says, a technician finally came out, after a year and a half of calls.
Community resources aren’t available to all
In Devereux, Georgia, where Gloria Simmons has lived for over 50 years, there’s not much except a Dollar General and a few churches. She often travels for basic services, but this year, she decided the internet could help cut down on trips, specifically to pay bills and access bank statements.
One of the reasons she held out on getting the service was her lack of digital skills. Instead of relying on her daughter, who works full time, Simmons wanted to learn how to navigate the internet herself.
“We get complacent and dependent upon others. I like to try to set it up where I can at least do it and do some things on my own,” Simmons told Capital B at her home.
But, as a retiree on a fixed income, it’s too expensive, she says. She pays $60 a month for fixed wireless internet with AT&T. But some months, if she goes over her data usage, it’s $10 for each additional 50 gigabytes of data. If it increases, she says she’ll cancel the service, despite its convenience.
Back in Alabama, Henry Hall Jr. has switched back and forth between AT&T and Spectrum, formerly Charter, for years. They are two of the largest internet companies worldwide and the only options available to him. He lives in a remote area in the countryside of Selma, surrounded by trees, and his service is always “buffering,” he said. He walks nearly 20 minutes to the Selma library to use the computer and printer. Drye calls him a regular because he’s there so much.
The Selma library and the nonprofits led by Dickerson and Hageman help to provide resources to their communities to access the internet. However, many communities don’t have those resources.
In 2021, President Joe Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which authorized $65 billion to fix broadband issues, including infrastructure, affordability, and digital literacy. Of that, $42.5 billion goes to states through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program.
Currently, each state is planning how to disperse the funds, but the rollout will happen over the next four years or so. Given the history of neglect to Black communities, residents question whether the billions of dollars from the feds for broadband will reach their area.
While Hall enjoys his library visits, he hopes the federal government’s initiatives will result in better service for residents.
“It’s unfortunate that when you use the internet, it’s buffering, or if there’s too many people trying to get in on it at one time, the internet … it becomes stagnant,” he added. “As long as I get the quality, I can use the internet when I need to use it, and that’s what I would like.”
To fight teacher shortages, schools turn to custodians, bus drivers and aides
MORGAN CITY, La. — Jenna Gros jangles as she walks the halls of Wyandotte Elementary School in St Mary’s Parish, Louisiana. The dozens of keys she carries while she sweeps, sprays, shelves and sorts make a loud sound, and when children hear her coming, they call out, “Miss Jenna!”
Gros is head custodian at Wyandotte, in this small town in southern Louisiana. She’s also a teacher-in-training.
In August 2020, she signed up for a new program designed to provide people working in school settings the chance to turn their job into an undergraduate degree in education, at a low cost. There’s untapped potential among people who work in schools right now, as classroom aides, lunchroom workers, afterschool staff and more, the thinking goes, and helping them become teachers could ease the shortage that’s dire in some districts around the country, particularly in rural areas like this one.
Brusly Elementary School has 595 students, ranging from ages two to seven. Principal Lesley Green says teacher retention is one of her top priorities: “Because we know that the best thing for our babies is stability and consistency. And that’s very important at this age level, especially where they thrive off of routines, procedures and familiar faces.” Credit: Kavitha Cardoza for The Hechinger Report
In two and a half years, the teacher training program, run by nonprofit Reach University, has grown from 50 applicants to about 1,000, with most coming from rural areas of Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama and California. The “apprenticeship degree” model costs students $75 dollars a month. The rest of the funding comes from Pell Grants and philanthropic donations. The classes, which are online, are taught by award-winning teachers, and districts must agree to have students work in the classroom for 15 hours a week as part of their training.
“We have overlooked a talent pool to our detriment,” said Joe Ross, president of Reach University. “These people have heart and they have the grit and they have the intelligence. There’s a piece of paper standing in the way.”
Efforts to recruit teacher candidates from the local community date back to the 1990s, but programs have “exploded” in number over the past five years, said Danielle Edwards, assistant professor of educational leadership, policy and workforce development at Old Dominion University in Virginia. Some of these “grow your own” programs, like Reach’s, recruit school employees who don’t have college degrees or degrees in education, while others focus on retired professionals, military veterans, college students, and even K12 students, with some starting as young as middle school.
“‘Grow your own’ has really caught on fire,” said Edwards, in part because of research showing that about 85 percent of teachers teach within 40 miles of where they grew up. But while these programs are increasingly popular, she says it isn’t clear what the teacher outcomes are in terms of effectiveness or retention.
Nationwide, there are at least 36,500 teacher vacancies, along with approximately 163,000 positions held by underqualified teachers, according to estimates by Tuan Nguyen, anassociate professor of education at Kansas State University. At Wyandotte, Principal Celeste Pipes has three uncertified teachers out of 26.
“We are pulling people literally off the streets to fill spots in a classroom,” she said. Surrounding parishes in this part of Louisiana, 85 miles west of New Orleans, pay more than the starting salary of $46,000 she can offer; some even cover the full cost of health insurance.
Data suggests not having qualified teachers can worsen student achievement and increase costs for districts. An unstable workforce also affects the school culture, said Pipes: “Once we have people here that are years and years and years in, we know how things are run.”
Jenna Gros, head custodian at Wyandotte Elementary School in St Mary’s Parish, Louisiana, stops to tie a student’s shoe. She said she makes it a point to develop relationships with students: “We don’t just do garbage, you know?” Credit: Kavitha Cardoza for The Hechinger Report
As Gros walks the hallways, she stops to swat a fly for a scared child, ties a first grader’s shoelaces and asks a third about their math homework. Her colleagues had long noticed her calm, encouraging manner, and so, when a teacher’s aide at Wyandotte heard about Reach, she urged Gros to sign up with her.
Gros grew up in this town — her father worked as a mechanic in the oil rigs — and always wanted to be a teacher. But with three children and a salary of $22,000 a year, she couldn’t afford to do so. The low cost and logistics of Reach’s program suddenly made it possible: Her district agreed to her spending 15 hours of her work week in the classroom, mentoring or tutoring students. She takes her online classes at night or on weekends.
Like other teacher-candidates at Reach University, Jenna Gros spends 15 hours a week in classrooms. She sometimes observes teachers, and other times helps children in small groups. Credit: Kavitha Cardoza for The Hechinger Report
Current employees are also in the retirement system, meaning the years they’ve already worked count toward their pension. For Gros, who has worked for 18 years in her school system, that was an important consideration, she said.
Pipes said people like Gros understand the vibe of this rural community — the importance of family, the focus on church, the love of hunting. And people with community roots are also less likely to leave, said Chandler Smith, the superintendent in West Baton Rouge Parish School System, a few hours’ drive away.
His district is the second-highest paying in the state but still struggles to attract and retain teachers: It saw a 15 percent teacher turnover rate last year. Now, it has 29 teacher candidates through Reach.
In West Baton Rouge Parish, Jackie Noble is walking back into the Brusly Elementary school building at 6:45 p.m. She’d finished her workday as a special education teacher’s aide around 3:30 p.m., then babysat her granddaughter for a few hours, spent time with her husband, and picked up a McDonald’s order of chicken nuggets, a large coffee and a Coke to get her through her evening classes. Some Reach classes go until 11 p.m.
Noble was a bus driver in this area for five years, but she longed to be a teacher. When she mustered the courage to research options for joining the profession, she learned it would cost somewhere between $5,000 to $15,000 a year over at least four years. “I wasn’t even financially able to pay for my transcript because it was going to cost me almost $100,” she said.
When Noble heard about Reach and the monthly tuition of $75 a month, she said, “My mouth hit the floor.”
Jackie Noble was a bus driver for years before she enrolled in Reach University’s online classes. Evening and weekend classes can be challenging but she says it will be worth it. She hopes to be a special education teacher for first graders when she graduates. Credit: Kavitha Cardoza for The Hechinger ReportJackie Noble, a former bus driver and current paraprofessional, works on a science experiment with first graders at Brusly Elementary School in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. Noble takes online classes in the evenings and weekends with Reach University as she studies to be a teacher and as part of the agreement, her district allows her 15 hours a week of classroom time. Credit: Kavitha Cardoza for The Hechinger Report
Ross, of Reach University, said he often hears some variation of: “I had to choose between a job and a degree.”
“What if we eliminate the question?” he said. “Let’s turn jobs into degrees.”
Brusly Elementary is quiet as Noble settles down in a classroom. She moves her food strategically off camera and ensures she has multiple devices logged in: her phone, laptop and desktop. Sometimes the internet here is spotty, and she doesn’t want to take any chances.
It’s the night of the final class of her course, “Children with Special Needs: History and Practice.” Her 24 classmates smile and wave as they log on from different states. They’ve been taking turns presenting on disabilities such as dyslexia, brain injuries and deafness; Noble gave hers, on assistive technologies for children with physical disabilities, last week.
Reach began in 2006 as a certification program for entry-level teachers who had a degree but still needed a credential. It then expanded to offer credentials to teachers who wanted to move into administration as well as graduate degrees in teaching and leadership. In 2020, Reach University started the program focused on school employees without a degree.
Kim Eckert, a former Louisiana teacher of the year and Reach’s dean, says she was drawn to the program because, as a high school special education teacher, she saw how little opportunity there was for classroom aides in her school to boost their skills. She started monthly workshops specifically for them.
Kimberly Eckert, dean of Reach University and the 2018 Louisiana Teacher of the Year, stands outside Brusly Elementary School in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. She says there’s an untapped pool of potential teacher candidates working as secretaries, bus drivers and janitors that society hasn’t traditionally considered as possible educators. “We definitely have blinders on. I think we’re conditioned to think that teachers look and sound and behave a certain way and we need to push ourselves and those limitations as well.” Credit: Kavitha Cardoza for The Hechinger Report
In growing the Reach program, Eckert drew from her teacher-of-the-year class, hiring people who understood the realities of classroom management and could model what it’s like to be a great teacher. She shied away from those who haven’t proven themselves in the classroom, even if they have degrees from top universities. “Everybody thinks they can be a teacher because they’ve had a teacher,” she said, but that’s not true.
The 15 hours a week of “in-class training,” which can include observing a teacher, tutoring students or helping write lessons, is designed to allow students to test out what they’re learning almost immediately, without having to wait months or years to put their studies into practice. Michelle Cottrell Williams, a Reach administrator and Virginia’s 2018 teacher of the year, recalls discussing an exercise in class about Disney’s portrayal of historical events versus the reality. One of her students, a classroom aide, shared it with the fifth graders she was working with the next day.
Noble says she’ll carry lessons about managing students from the bus to her classroom. She was responsible for up to 70 students while driving 45 miles an hour — so 20 in a classroom seems doable, she said.
She can’t wait to have her own classroom where she is responsible for everything. “Being with the students approximately eight hours a day, you make a very, very larger impression on their lives,” she said.
In May, Reach graduated its first class of teachers, a group of 13 students from Louisiana who had prior credits. The organization’s first full cohort will walk across the stage in spring 2024.
There are promising signs. Nationwide, about half of teacher candidates pass their state’s teaching licensure exam; more than 60 percent of the 13 Reach graduates did. All of them had a job waiting for them, not only in their local community, but in the building where they’d been working.
But Roddy Theobald, deputy director of the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research and researcher at the American Institutes for Research, says far more research is needed on “grow your own” programs. “There’s very, very little empirical evidence about the effectiveness of these pathways,” he said.
One of the challenges is that the programs rarely target the specific needs of schools, he said. Some states have staffing shortages only in specific areas, like special education, STEM or elementary ed. “Sometimes they result in even more teachers with the right credentials to teach courses that the state doesn’t actually need,” he said.
Reach University has several state Teachers of the Year among its faculty for its ‘grown your own’ program, including from Virginia, Idaho, Delaware and Hawaii. Dean Kim Eckert, herself a 2018 teacher of the year from Louisiana, says she wanted the best educators with the latest information in front of her teacher candidates. “It’s not like a typical university where in four years you’ll have your own class and you’ll be a great teacher. You are in your own class right now,” Eckert says. Credit: Kavitha Cardoza for The Hechinger Report
Edwards, one of the first researchers to study “grow your own” programs, is investigating whether teachers who complete them are effective in the classroom and stay employed in the field long term, as well as how diverse these educators are and whether they actually end up in hard-to-staff schools.
“States are investing millions of dollars into this strategy, and we don’t know anything about its effectiveness,” she said. “We could be putting all this money into something that may or may not work.”
Ross, of Reach University, says his group plans to research whether its new teachers are effective and stay in their jobs. In terms of meeting schools’ specific labor needs, Reach has agreements with other organizations such as TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project) and the University of West Alabama to help people take higher-level courses in hard-to-fill specialties such as high school math. But while Reach staff look at information on teacher vacancies before partnering with a school district, they don’t focus on matching the district’s exact staffing needs said Ross: “Our hope is the numbers work themselves out.”
Jenna Gros, the head custodian of Wyandotte, makes it a point to know children’s names and speak to them as she works. “It’s about building a bond. You have to be able to bond with them in order to make them feel like they are someone and that they can be someone,” she says. Credit: Kavitha Cardoza for The Hechinger Report
In Louisiana, Ross said he believes the organization could put a serious dent in the teacher vacancy numbers statewide. Some 84 percent of all parishes have signed on for Reach trainees, he said, and 650 teachers-in-training are enrolled. That amounts to more than a quarter of the teacher vacancy numbers statewide, 2,500.
“We’re getting pretty close to being a material contribution to the solution in that state,” he said.
His group is also looking to partner with states, including Louisiana, to use Department of Labor money for teacher apprenticeships. At least 16 states have such programs. Under a Labor Department rule last year, teacher apprenticeships can now access millions in federal job-training funds. Reach is in talks to use some of that money, which Ross says would allow it to make the programs free to students and rely less on philanthropy.
A straight-A student since her first semester, head custodian Jenna Gros expects to graduate without any debt in May 2024. She expects to teach at this same elementary school. At that point, her salary will almost double.
She said she loves how a teacher can shape a child’s future for the better. “That’s what a teacher is — a nurturer trying to provide them with the resources that they are going to need for later on in life.
I think I can be that person,” she said. She pauses. “I know I can.”
This story about grow your own programs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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