RALEIGH — A move to award scholarships to aspiring teachers would limit options for recipients.

Senate Bill 252, “North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program,” would provide future science, technology, engineering, math, and special education teachers with forgivable college loans of up to $8,250 annually for four years.

But there’s a caveat. The program requires that students select among five teaching programs chosen by a state-appointed commission.

The cap is meant to ensure students attend top education programs at either public or private institutions, says bill sponsor Sen. Chad Barefoot, R-Wake.

But the limit may frustrate the program’s purpose, which is to place teachers in low-performing schools, said Terry Stoops, director of research and education studies for the John Locke Foundation.

Universities with top education programs don’t exist in areas with the highest need for STEM and special education teachers, Stoops says, and that could be a problem because teaching fellows are likely to take jobs close to their universities.

“If the five institutions selected by the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Commission are located in North Carolina’s most populous areas, then the Teaching Fellows Program would be absent from regions of the state that have the greatest difficulty recruiting and retaining high-quality STEM and special education teachers.

“If the bill is passed as written, my hope is that the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Commission will ask the General Assembly to expand the program into institutions not included in the original cohort.”

Sen. Erica Smith-Ingram, D-Bertie, and Sen. Rick Horner, R-Johnson, raised concerns about the geographic impact of the scholarship plan

Limiting the number of university programs to five would ensure quality of education, Barefoot said during a committee meeting Tuesday.

The 160 teaching fellows selected annually would, he says, benefit from a tight-knit troop.

“Would I like to see the program grow? Absolutely, in the future,” Barefoot said. “[But] rather than dispersing recipients around the state … , we are keeping them concentrated in a programmatic kind of way. It also keeps the programming side of the teaching fellows initiative.

“I think what we’ve attempted to do with this bill is to establish the most elite, distinguished program possible.”

Multiple attempts by Carolina Journal to reach Barefoot for additional comment were not immediately returned.
Follow this link to learn more about the North Carolina Teaching Fellows plan.