Funding for RAMP program to solve teacher shortage on pause

The Oklahoma Board of Regents for Higher Education has partnered with Langston University to work on the statewide teacher shortage by creating the Educator Ramp Up Initiative program. The program allows non- education majors with bachelor’s degrees to become certified teachers. They offer support through mentorship and assistance with resources and payment for certification paperwork.

“It provides another opportunity for individuals who are looking into going to education, an opportunity to navigate that space for free. Essentially, they wouldn’t have to pay for it,” said Dr. Leonard Newby, assistant professor of urban education and director of recruiting for the Educator RAMP Up Program.

The program was created with grant funding to target any person with a bachelor’s degree who doesn’t have the necessary credits to qualify as a teacher. They are offered courses that teach you how to create lesson plans and handling classroom management.

“For example, if you were a biology major, it doesn’t mean that you could go out and be a teacher, right? It means that you know, like you have the knowledge to be a, you know, like a biology teacher. But at the same time, you have to have pedagogical courses such as like, behavior management, classroom management, how to lesson plan and things of that sort,” said Newby.

The mentors are there to help students with navigating the certification process, job searching, and teaching them how to take the subject area tests required in Oklahoma. They would bring in real teachers from different types of schools to explain what they do on a daily basis.

“We had somebody come in and stick with them about charter schools and how to navigate those and what that looks like. The difference to our charter school and a public school, we’ve just brought in people to, you know, assist them to gain a bit more knowledge about the field that they’ll be working in, in general.”

However, the program is currently on hold due to recent government legislation.

“It appeared that it would be extended, but due to recent events, the grant is on ‘pause’… The changes are related to President Trump’s activity in closing grants,” said Dr. Emily Patterson Harris, Dean of the School of Education and Behavioral Sciences.

The teacher shortage has hit crisis levels for many years. Teachers are reported to be leaving the profession because of low salary, heavy workloads, safety concerns, and mental health issues. According to the Langston University 2024-2025 fact book, the most popular major in Fall 2024 for the School of Education and Behavioral Science is psychology, with 164 enrollments, while the most popular teaching specific major is elementary education, with only 30 enrollments.

“Teacher pay in general doesn’t provide many the opportunity to take care of themselves and their families the way that they would want to, especially with somebody with a bachelor’s degree. So, you go to school for 4 years, and not only that, but you actually put in more work than the average student,” said Newby.

Newby claimed the hardest part of the teacher shortage was the retention rate.

“We don’t really have, like a huge issue getting teachers in the door. It’s about keeping them in the field. We lose so many teachers every year, like certified teachers, you know what I’m saying, every year, and we have to figure out how to navigate that.”

The House Appropriations Education Subcommittee passed house bill 1087 on Feb. 10th, which extends the teacher salary schedule by 10 years. The bill is meant to encourage teachers to prolong their retirement for the promise of salary increases.

Dr. Newby agrees that teachers deserve more financial compensation for their workload. For a doctorate degree level educator working in Oklahoma, he wishes he was making around 60 to 70k for his yearly salary.

“If there’s like a mean or median income for citizens in Oklahoma or just in any state, I think that educators should make a percentage over that, if that makes any sense.”

For more information on the Educator Ramp Up Program, you can contact Dr. Newby a ltownsn@langston.edu.