Dive Brief:
- On Thursday, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) announced plans to introduce the Rural Educator Support and Training (REST) Act, a bill to support the development of rural teachers.
- The bill would provide scholarships to teaching students who commit to spending at least three years in a rural school and up to $17,000 in loan forgiveness after five years of teaching.
- Schools would also be able to get funds to reimburse rural teachers for the costs associated with obtaining a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification.
Dive Insight:
The bill is intended to help address to shortage of rural teachers in Montana and elsewhere. Recent teacher shortages have been concentrated in rural areas, where dropping enrollment has tightened budgets, and districts have struggled to recruit qualified candidates. The initiatives in Tester’s bill are not new, and many districts have been experimenting with them already. The bill, if it passes, would throw federal support behind those efforts, which have met with mixed success.
"As a former elementary school teacher and school board member in a small Montana town, I understand the challenges rural schools face when trying to recruit and retain quality teachers," Tester said in a release. "In many rural areas the school is the foundation of the town. Building a strong pipeline of motivated teachers from our universities to our rural schools will provide students with a good education and strengthen the entire community."
