In response to a nationwide shortage of teachers and reductions in U.S. military personnel, Congress created the Troops to Teachers (TTT) program in 1992. Decades later, nationwide teacher shortages persist. According to the Department of Education, teacher shortages continue to rise yearly in the United States. Throughout the pandemic, many school districts faced significant challenges in attracting and retaining teachers. Preexisting teacher shortages in critical areas such as Special Education; Bilingual Education; Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM); Career and Technical Education; and Early Childhood Education have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Research shows that these shortages in critical areas directly impact educational opportunities for students. Also, educator shortages disproportionately impact students of color, students from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, and students from rural communities.
TTT addresses teacher shortages by removing common service member and veteran barriers to teacher certification and employment. The program provides services and support to help service members and veterans achieve the goal of becoming certified K-12 teachers with individualized counseling on sta te-specific requirements, referrals to education programs, and employment facilitation. Of the more than 100,000 teachers placed in K-12 classrooms, many are male and minority teachers in high-need subject areas, such as Math and Science, and choose to teach in low-income schools.
When TTT funding within DoD was discretionary, the Department stopped investing in the program following the Defense-Wide Review of September 13, 2019. In favor of other National Defense Strategy initiatives, DoD internally sunset the program and its supporting infrastructure. After that, DoD stopped funding individual state and consortia grants with state departments of education that provided pro gram services in 31 states. DoD also decommissioned the TTT Defense business information system, closed out a professional services contract that provided personnel to support program administration, and shut down the TTT website used for potential participant program awareness and knowledge mana gement among participating, state grantees.
The FY22 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) (Public Law 117-81) removed DoD’s discretion to operate the TTT program and made it mandatory. Since the FY22 NDAA made the program mandatory on December 27, 2021, the Department has had to reverse its sunset activities and begin to rebuild the program. The 2022 Department of Defense Appropriations Act did not include a corresponding appro priation to support restarting the TTT program, compelling the program to request the end-of-year funds to sustain grant agreements with state departments of education to operate the program. TTT received FY22 end-of-year funding that provides program services in 25 states for FY23 until May 14, 2023.
The end-of-year funding for state TTT grant pro gram offices enables continued individualized counseling on state-specific teacher certification requirements, referrals to education programs, and connections to employment opportunities until May 2023 in 25 states. States currently providing TTT services include Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
State grant services include:
• Recruitment: Attracting and increasing the number of eligible current and former Armed Forces members into the TTT program.
• Counseling: Guidance on state-specific alter native and traditional routes to teacher certifi cation.
• Referral: Connections to accredited teacher preparation programs and state credentialing agencies.
• Barrier Reduction: Reducing barriers that prevent veterans from meeting teacher cer tification requirements for transitioning into teaching careers.
• Innovative Education Models: Implementa tion of educational models to award academic credit for prior experience and other relevant military training.
• Employment Facilitation: Assistance with finding and preparing for job opportunities in local school districts experiencing teacher shortages.
Education offices are encouraged to:
• Engage with TTT state representatives and work with them to resume Teaching as a Second Career briefings on base. Below is a list of states that are currently operating state TTT programs. Please feel free to reach out to the point of contact for your state.
• Direct service members and veterans interested in the TTT program to complete the Program Interest Form to receive services at www.ProudToServeAgain.com
Upon completion of the Program Interest Form, service members and veterans will be contacted by the state program for counseling and referral services. Service members and veterans interested in teaching within a state that does not have a state program will be contacted by the TTT program office with referral information.
Alabama Kristie Shankles kristie.shankles@alsde.edu
Arizona Lee Fernwault lee.fernwault@azed.gov
Colorado Dr. Colleen O’Neil Oneil_C@cde.state.co.us
Connecticut Sharon Fuller sharon.fuller@ct.gov
Delaware Melissa Petaccio melissa.petaccio@doe.nj.gov
Florida Ron Burton ron.burton@tcc.fl.edu
Georgia Bradley Golub bradley.golub@gapsc.com GA TTT Email troopstoteachers@gapsc.com
Iowa James Henley james.henley@dese.mo.gov Turner Shipman turner.shipman@dese.mo.gov
Idaho Byron McKinney byron.mckinney1@montana.edu
Kansas Thomas Vontz tvontz@ksu.edu Dustin Meritt ddm4774@ksu.edu
Minnesota Byron McKinney byron.mckinney1@montana.edu
Missouri James Henley james.henley@dese.mo.gov Turner Shipman turner.shipman@dese.mo.gov
Montana Byron McKinney byron.mckinney1@montana.edu
New Jersey Melissa Petaccio melissa.petaccio@doe.nj.gov
New York Dr. Luis Echevarria LEchevarria@schools.nyc.gov Dana McGraw dmcgraw2@schools.nyc.gov
North Carolina Jason Caldwell jason.caldwell@dpi.nc.gov
North Dakota Byron McKinney byron.mckinney1@montana.edu
Ohio David Schklar david.schklar@education.ohio.gov
Oklahoma Dennis Purvis dennis.purvis@sde.ok.gov
Oregon Byron McKinney byron.mckinney1@montana.edu
Pennsylvania Dr. Jane Heiple jheiple@lyceumgroup.com Jamal Wakeem jwakeem@pa.gov
South Dakota Byron McKinney byron.mckinney1@montana.edu
Virginia Karen Hogue kphogue@wm.edu Edward Gawlik ejgawlik@wm.edu
Wisconsin Byron McKinney byron.mckinney1@montana.edu
Wyoming Byron McKinney byron.mckinney1@montana.edu
Although TTT cannot accept new applicants, the program can capture program interest from poten tial participants. For FY22, 7,530 service members and veterans expressed interest in participating in the TTT program. Interest continues to grow by approximately 150 - 200+ service members and veterans on a weekly basis. States where potential participants are most interested in teaching, include Texas, Florida, California, Virginia, Georgia, Oklaho ma, North Carolina, Washington, Ohio, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania.
Efforts to restart the program are limited until full funding is received to execute the program. The program will continue to offer information and referral services to potential participants that express interest in the TTT program. State-specific services through grant offices will offer counseling, referral, and employment facilitation to potential partici pants in 25 states until May 2023, when the current performance period for grant agreements expires. Rebuilding the program infrastructure will require new state grant awards, the acquisition of a Defense business system and a professional services contract for new Case Managers, and building program awa reness among the Defense and Veteran communi ties. Building TTT program awareness will begin with the launch of a new program website in February 2023. The new website will:
• Provide a user experience that guides poten tial participants through learning about the program, becoming registered, exploring and
connecting to state programs, and navigating employment resources.
• Include an interactive map that helps potential participants find state-specific teaching informa tion and resources.
• Provide hiring officials with a guided user ex perience to learn about the benefits of hiring program participants and advertising teaching opportunities on the website.
• Enable TTT program participants to search for teaching opportunities by state, grade level, sub ject, and employment type.
The Department of Defense (DoD) is committed to addressing Veteran unemployment while providing a solution to the national teacher shortage through the TTT program. Although the Department has made progress to restart the program and connect service members and veterans to resources that support their transition into teaching careers, there is more work ahead. Acquiring the requisite funding for the program will enable DoD to rebuild the pro gram’s infrastructure. Despite the limited offering and program resources, interest in participating in the TTT program continues to grow. Service mem bers and veterans interested in becoming a teacher will continue to be provided information and refe rral services until the TTT program infrastructure is restored and more robust service offerings become available.
For answers to program-related questions, contact ttt@navy.mil or visit the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) at www.ProudToServeAgain.com.
The 2022 USMC Education Service Officers (ESO) Annual Training Event occurred in-person after a hiatus due to COVID-19 restrictions. Approximately 20 Marine Corps education professionals attended in Quantico, VA representing the 180,000 Marines they serve. The training was packed with multiple speakers from Department of Education, the Vo luntary Education Policy Office within the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Education and Training and the Defense Activity for Non-Tra ditional Education Support (DANTES) to name a few. DANTES provided a 3 .5 hour workshop that fo cused on the Academic Skills Training Program and the Online Academic Skills Course and Educator Portal. The workshop also covered a brief overview of DANTES and highlighted the Military Training Evaluation Program (MTEP) and Credit-by-Exams program.
The program manager, Ms. Kiwanis Short, stated, “It was an honor to be invited to this event by Mr. Mac Millan the USMC Service Chief. The ESOs and the workload that they are managing is very daunting. But I left with a better understanding of each base and definitely with a greater respect for the challen ges these educational professional manage every day.” In addition training sessions on Marine 4 Life,
Leadership Scholar Program, Volunteer Manage ment Program and Power BI and Data Collection were presented.The next day there was a Resource Fair that was held at the Marine Corps Museum. Everyone loved the format, which consisted of quick introductions and then the opportunity to meet with each vendor separa tely for more in depth conversations. The entire event proved to be worthy of the instructors time, as well as the participants. Some of the participants included Columbia University Veteran Training, Service to School, Warrior Scholar Project, EBSCO, the Wounded Warrior Regiment, and Vernon Taylor Enterprise Alliance, in addition to DANTES.
The USMC Education professionals were amazing hosts, professionals, team players and all heart when it co mes to military education. This was a great opportunity for DANTES and the USMC education professionals to meet and learn from each other.
