Champaign Unit 4’s College and Career Readiness team has received its first Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) Pathway Endorsement in Education. The Education Pathway Endorsement is designed for students interested in pursuing careers in education, including teaching, administration, counseling, and related fields. Graduates of Unit 4 who fulfill the endorsement requirements will earn an Education Pathway Endorsement.
The Career Technical Education (CTE) Education Career Pathway Grant aims to increase future teacher diversity. Illinois, like most other states, has faced a persistent shortage of educators of color with a teacher workforce that is significantly less diverse than its student population. The demographics of the participants in ISBE’s CTE Education Career Pathway Grants closely mirror the broader student population.
The CTE Education Career Pathway Grant leverages research about the effectiveness of building local pipelines of teacher talent. Studies find that teachers prefer working close to where they grew up. In fact, over 60% of teachers teach within 15 miles of the high school from which they graduated.
Students in the Education Career Pathway or Program of Study participate in field experiences and work-based learning, helping them gain hands-on experience and explore various educational settings and content areas. Participants gain a head start on their journey to becoming teachers by earning dual credit; industry certification, such as paraprofessional licensure; and microcredentials to demonstrate teaching competencies. The grant also supports increasing awareness about the teaching profession through early career exploration activities and student leadership organizations, such as Educators Rising.
Unfilled positions data shows that initiatives like this are producing results, with the teaching profession in Illinois growing year-over-year for the past seven years. However, teacher supply has not kept pace with demand. Illinois districts still reported starting the 2023-24 school year with more than 4,000 teaching vacancies, with a third of the vacancies in special education. ISBE is tackling the teacher shortage via a robust portfolio of initiatives. The Teacher Vacancy Grant provided $45 million in state funding in both fiscal year 2024 and FY 2025 to help the state’s most understaffed districts attract and retain teachers. Additionally, ISBE launched the $6 million The Answer is Teaching recruitment marketing campaign in July 2024, generating more than 3,800 inquiries from prospective future teachers to date.
Grantees will focus on program planning in Year 1 of the grant, with implementation occurring in fiscal years 2026-28. The CTE Education Career Pathway Grant application gave priority to entities serving rural districts, understaffed high schools, underfunded districts, and those lacking teacher diversity.
To learn more about CTE Education Career Pathway Grant, visit ISBE’s College and Career Grants webpage.