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Drawing on historical context from the 1960s–1970s and the crises of the 1970s, it analyzes why pipeline programs often failed to expand and what questions they raised for unions and educators.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & 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OF THE UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS PHOTOS COLLECTION & HANS WEISSENSTEIN NEGAT IVES, TAMI MENT LIBRARY & ROBERT F. WAGNER LABOR ARCHIVES, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY  \nBy Nick Juravich  \nL  \nast February, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) and the School District of Philadelphia announced a new paraprofessional career development program. With over $4 million in funding, the program offers several new  \ntuition-free pathways for paraprofessional educators in Philadelphia to become certified classroom teachers. PFT President Jerry Jordan called the program a “historic step towards equity and justice,” noting,“the majority of paraprofessionals in our district are Black and brown women, and it should be lost on no one that they are some of the lowest paid workers in the system.”1 Jordan added that “teacher diversity is sorely lacking” in the district, as demonstrated by a report that showed Philadelphia currently employs 1,200 fewer Black teachers than it did two decades ago.2  \nAcross the country, paraprofessionals in cities are primarily Black and Latina women, and they are far more likely than teacherstolive in the district and even the school zone where they work. As for teachers, a 2015 Albert Shanker Institute study showed that the percentages of Black teachers in major city school districts across the nation have declined, sometimes drastically, while the  \nNick Juravich is an assistant professor of history and labor studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston and the associate director of the university’s Labor Resource Center. His research focuses on the history of public education, social movements, and public sector unions. His first book, forthcoming with the University of Illinois Press, is a study of paraprofessional educators titled, The Work of Education: Community-Based Educators in Schools, Freedom Struggles, and the Labor Movement.  \npercentages of census-designated Hispanic teachers have broadly held constant.3 At the same time, many of these districts have served a majority of Black and Latinx students since the 1960s, when educators, policymakers, and teachers unions first began building and fighting for para-to-teacher pathways.  \nThis is a strategy with a long history and tremendous potential for developing a more diverse teacher corps and connecting teachers and their unions with the communities they serve. Perhaps most importantly, paraprofessionals have long sought opportunities to become teachers. Teaching jobs have offered paths to economic stability to working people for over a century, but beyond the economics, paraprofessionals are already educators. They have intimate, firsthand knowledge of what makes a classroom successful and every reason to believe they could succeed as teachers. This is why Philadelphia’s program is one of several that AFT locals have fought for and won in recent years, including new or expanded programs in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Pittsburgh.4  \nI am a historian of paraprofessional jobs and organizing during the formative years of the 1960s and 1970s. In those years, AFT organizers and their allies spoke of a “paraprofessional movement” that would seize upon the massive demand for these workers—halfa million paraprofessionals were hired across the United States from 1965 to 1975—to make public education and paths to teaching more open, diverse, and democratic. That paraprofessionals would make excellent teachers was a core belief of the policymakers, civil rights activists, and teacher unionists who organized to create programs of local hiring and advancement.  \n28 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | WINTER 2022–23  \nParaprofessionals, who were members of the United Federation of Teachers, taking a high school equivalency exam in Manhattan in 1970.  \nThe promise of a “career ladder” was why many paraprofessionals—then as now, primarily working-class Black and Latina women—a","cbCaigoy7T1EhsIi","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaigoy7T1EhsIi","pdf",398630,"English","# Union-backed career development in Philadelphia\n## Why paraprofessional pathways matter for equity\n# Historical roots of the paraprofessional movement\n## Demand for paraprofessional work and prospects for teaching\n# Why robust programs declined in the United States\n## The 1970s crises and program collapse","[{\"question\":\"What new program did Philadelphia announce for paraprofessionals?\",\"answer\":\"Philadelphia’s Federation of Teachers and the School District announced a tuition-free paraprofessional career development program with over $4 million in funding to support pathways into certified classroom teacher roles.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article connect teacher diversity to equity concerns?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that teacher diversity is lacking in the district, citing a report showing Philadelphia employs 1,200 fewer Black teachers than it did two decades earlier, while many paraprofessionals are Black and brown women.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the article say para-to-teacher programs weakened across the U.S.?\",\"answer\":\"It points to the crises of the 1970s, including municipal fiscal crises, reduced federal support for antipoverty programs, and a conservative shift in U.S. politics that undermined public schools, bargaining, and teacher training.\"}]","Reclaiming the Promise - Union Advocacy for Paraprofessional-to-Teacher Pathways | PDF",1792071332,18]