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WASHINGTON, DC – Federal action from the U.S. Department of Education will likely result in a reduction or elimination of the educator pipeline for Eastern North Carolina.

According to Rodney D. Pierce, who represents District 27 in the North Carolina House of Representatives, East Carolina University’s edPIRATE program, the DREAM Program through the UNC School of Education, and Winston-Salem TEACH administered through Winston-Salem State University are affected through recent cuts to the Teacher Quality Preparation (TQP) Program Grant.

Pierce said that as of the 2022-23 school year, North Carolina had more than 6,000 instructional vacancies across the state. He noted that North Carolina has seen a continued spike of teacher attrition, with 11.5% of the state’s traditional public school teachers leaving in 2023.

According to the TQP program’s website, it “funds teacher preparation programs at the undergraduate or “fifth-year” level (Pre-Baccalaureate Models); and teaching residency programs for individuals new to teaching with strong academic and professional backgrounds (Residency Models).”

In addition to ECU, UNC-Chapel Hill and Winston-Salem State, other universities in North Carolina have received TQP funding, including N.C. A&T State University, Pfeiffer University, High Point University, UNC-Charlotte and UNC-Greensboro. WSSU and N.C. A&T are both HBCUs.

“Our public schools are struggling, particularly in eastern North Carolina,” Pierce said. “These federal cuts will have an outsized impact on our community and the educator pipeline in North Carolina. We need to be doing more to incentivize young people to enter the teaching profession. As an educator myself, I understand the need for investment in the future. This hits home for me and my community, and we cannot stop calling out the harm these cuts will have.”

Pierce said the cuts likely stem from the administration’s anti-DEI initiatives as four of the TQP grant’s competitive priorities include increasing educator diversity, supporting a diverse educator workforce and professional growth to strengthen student learning, meeting student social, emotional, and academic needs, and promoting equity in student access to educational resources and opportunities.

On Feb. 17, the U.S. Department of Education announced it has terminated over $600 million in grants to institutions and nonprofits that were using taxpayer funds to train teachers and education agencies on divisive ideologies.

“Training materials included inappropriate and unnecessary topics such as Critical Race Theory; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI); social justice activism; ‘anti-racism’; and instruction on white privilege and white supremacy. Additionally, many of these grants included teacher and staff recruiting strategies implicitly and explicitly based on race,” as noted on the U.S. Department of Education website.