Community allies to classroom leaders: examining equitable teacher pathways in the context of a university–district collaboration Open Access

The role and nature of a paraeducator’s work in school and communities varies significantly across state contexts (Bisht et al., 2021), but several benefits of their presence in schools have been studied. Paraeducators more closely match the demographics of the American student population in terms of ethnoracial diversity and home language than the general teacher workforce (Villegas & Clewell, 1998; Williams et al., 2016). Paraeducators often have strong connections to the communities where they work and are strong advocates for students and their families (Chopra et al., 2004). Recent research also documents the positive impact of paraeducators on student learning (Hemelt & Ladd, 2017; Hemelt et al., 2021). In addition, paraeducators who transition to full-time teaching have higher retention rates (Fotner et al., 2015). Given the strengths offered by paraeducators, states and districts across the country have developed programs to attract and prepare them to become certified teachers (Garcia, 2023).

Still, educator preparation programs complicate paraeducators' access to the teaching profession. Traditional teacher education programs are often designed assuming full-time enrollment by students who are not from the surrounding school communities, have no additional familial or professional responsibilities and have financial resources to pay for a college degree. This creates challenges for teacher candidates who do not meet these assumptions because paraeducators are a group of potential teachers who do not conform to the typical design of teacher education programs. For example, paraeducators are often unable to attend school full-time and may not have financial resources to pay for college due to familial and personal responsibilities (Amos, 2013, 2018). Misalignment of paraeducators with teacher education programs has limited efforts to recruit paraeducator teacher pools; however, intentionally designed paraeducator pathways can create access to the profession (Gist, 2022; Villegas & Clewell, 1998).

Although paraeducators represent a promising pool of future teachers, educator preparation programs often create barriers that limit their access to the teaching profession. Traditional teacher education programs are typically structured for full-time students who are not employed in schools, have minimal familial responsibilities and possess the financial means to pursue a college degree. These assumptions exclude many paraeducators, who are deeply embedded in school communities but frequently balance work, family and financial constraints that make full-time study unrealistic (Amos, 2013, 2018). As a result, the misalignment between paraeducators' lived realities and the design of traditional teacher preparation programs has hindered efforts to build teacher pipelines from this group. However, intentionally designed paraeducator-to-teacher pathways have shown promise in expanding access and diversifying the teaching workforce (Gist et al., 2024; Villegas & Clewell, 1998).

Despite the potential of such pathways, paraeducators continue to face significant barriers that constrain their progression into teaching roles. Financial limitations, caregiving responsibilities, time constraints and certification testing requirements all pose substantial challenges (Bisht et al., 2021; Camp et al., 2024; Theobald et al., 2025). These barriers are often most pronounced for PCIP, who experience compounded inequities within educational and employment systems (Gist et al., 2022). Further exacerbating these challenges, K–12 district HR departments in the United States often adhere to rigid hiring policies and practices, limiting the use of innovative recruitment strategies that would recognize paraeducators as viable and valuable teacher candidates (Perrone & Meyers, 2023).

University–district partnerships aimed at strengthening pathways into the teaching profession frequently take the form of GYO teacher preparation models and teacher residencies. Although there is a growing body of research documenting outcomes for these models, significant gaps remain, particularly regarding their effectiveness when paraeducators represent the target recruitment pool (Simieou et al., 2021). University–district GYO partnerships do employ recruitment strategies that strengthen local pipelines and diversify candidate pools (Hamman et al., 2023; Texas Education Agency, 2024). Emerging evidence indicates that these programs increase interest in teaching careers among paraeducators and high school students and can be designed to recruit candidates inclined to remain in high-need schools. However, program success is contingent on critical design factors such as financial support, clear hiring pathways and sustained district commitment to follow-through (Acosta & Holdheide, 2021; Fogle et al., 2024). Partnerships that include extended clinical experiences offer more practice-focused preparation than many traditional routes and often provide paid support and structured mentor training linked to stronger indicators of candidate readiness (Guha et al., 2017). Overall, the intensity of clinical experiences and the quality of implementation through the partnership model is a promising area of research/practice collaboration toward improving teacher preparation outcomes.

A key advantage of the university–district partnership model is the provision of sustained professional learning supports, such as professional development (PD) and professional learning communities, that extend into teachers’ early career stages (Swanson & Duncan, 2025). These supports are most effective when partners reconcile their roles and leverage university expertise to advance school and classroom goals (Gooden et al., 2011). Evidence regarding hiring and retention outcomes is mixed but promising: residency and GYO graduates demonstrate higher local placement rates and improved retention when districts employ cohort hiring and provide structured induction support (Edwards et al., 2024). Contextual factors, including hiring policies, incentives and working conditions, remain significant mediators of outcomes, which is why more research on this topic that conducts analysis across district contexts is needed (Edwards & Kraft, 2024).

Overall, the effectiveness of university–district partnerships depends on specific features: funded clinical placements, paid support, mentor training, explicit hiring agreements and collaboratively developed goals. When these factors align, partnerships can effectively recruit, prepare and place teachers in ways that meet district priorities (U.S. Department of Education, 2018). To summarize, GYO programs tailored for paraprofessionals can adapt and meet the needs of a diverse group of educators – many whom likely hold teaching credentials and degree foundations – and offer a flexible continued model of PD (Bernal & Aragon, 2004; Worthen et al., 2022). And funding is a critical component of GYO programs in the context of partnerships; well-funded programs are more likely to produced educators with higher retention rates (Fogle et al., 2024).

This study was implemented within a complex and rapidly evolving state educational policy landscape. The state’s teacher preparation landscape is characterized by recent deregulatory reforms that have loosened certification requirements and expanded alternative pathways. While these efforts seek flexibility, they have also raised questions about program quality, equity and workforce stability. To date, little research has explored how such policies shape opportunities for paraeducators aspiring to become teachers. Our study addresses this gap by offering evidence from a partnership operating within an increasingly market-based educational environment (Duarte, 2021; Harris, 2024). This case offers valuable lessons for other regions confronting similar challenges, such as teacher shortages, retention concerns and rising costs, by demonstrating how intentional university–district collaboration can serve as a stabilizing and equity-focused response to deregulation (Dupriez et al., 2016; Ingersoll et al., 2018).

This study took place to inform a partnership between university faculty, teacher unions and three large K–12 districts focused on designing and implementing a GYO teacher program. Specifically, our research goals were to provide data-informed evidence that could be useful to the development of a paraeducator-to-teacher pathway. This partnership is representative of the collaborative nature of university–district partnerships where PK–12 and higher education communities work in tandem to co-design systems that strengthen educator pipelines and workforce sustainability. To motivate our study design, we draw on the “research in school-university partnerships” framework, where the partnership itself served as a rich context to study PCIP, their demographic/educational characteristics and their pathways into the teaching profession (Lynch et al., 2024, p. 221). The key aspect of our study is that it was designed to inform the work of both university and district partners, providing evidence that would help with the continuous design and decision-making processes involved with program implementation.

Our methods were quantitative and descriptive; we focus on PCIP in the context of the partnership by spotlighting three school districts directly involved in the university–district partnership focused on paraeducator-to-teacher credentialing pathways. During the 2021–2022 school year, the three districts served a combined total of 295,897 students, of whom 95% were Students of Color and Indigenous Students, 84% were economically disadvantaged and 43% were classified as either English learners or emergent bilinguals (Texas Education Agency, 2022). District 1 ISD ranks among the top eight school districts in the nation and the surrounding two districts reflect the changing ethnoracial and linguistic demographic landscape taking place across the United States. Each district had a range of educator preparation initiatives to recruit new teachers, many of which include GYO programs, residency models and partnerships with institutions of higher education, charter networks and for-profit entities. Though the educational makeup of the district context is distinct, findings from these district cases may be instructive for large school districts in other parts of the country.

The data for this study came from the Education Research Center (ERC) at the University of Texas at Austin. The ERC houses the state longitudinal student data system, which integrates K–12 student-level and employee-level data from the Texas Education Agency (TEA), teacher certification data from the State Board of Educator Certification (SBEC) and student-level higher education data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). Each employee working at a K-12 school or district in the state is assigned a unique identification number, allowing researchers to follow employees over time and across multiple positions. For this investigation, we utilized TEA data in the ERC, specifically files with information about paraeducator and teacher employment, demographic and educational backgrounds. To provide a more complete picture of educational backgrounds and certification, we also linked SBEC files providing us with information about the year a paraeducator or teacher was certified as well as the type of preparation program associated with their certification. In order to protect the anonymity of the partners involved with the project, we kept the region and associated districts anonymous in the descriptive findings.

Our final analytic file included all employee records from the three school districts between the 2007 and 2022 school years, which amounted to 305,565 total employee-year observations, representing 11,471 individual paraeducators and 56,125 individual teachers. This file only included full-time equivalent educators; observations of part-time educators were dropped. Due to the longitudinal structure of our data, there were many paraeducators and teachers who appeared more than once in our analytic file because they were employed for multiple years. We chose to structure our data in this way because it provided a more complete picture of the paraeducator and teacher workforce during the timespan studied. However, in an effort to limit the potential for individuals who appear across multiple years to distort our results, we conducted sensitivity checks by running each of our analyses across single year cross-sections of our data. The results of these sensitivity checks were consistent with those from our pooled analyses.

Each employee-year observation included a binary indicator of whether the employee was a paraeducator (0 = not a paraeducator, 1 = paraeducator). Observations also included demographic information (gender identity, race/ethnicity), years of experience as an educator, degree attainment (associate’s/bachelor’s degrees) and certification information. We then linked information aggregated at the school-year level to the school where each paraeducator and teacher was employed to capture measures of school context (e.g., student demographics, average teacher retention). A list of the variables used in our analyses can be found in Tables 1 and 2. Drawing on recent research that maps the variation of the teacher preparation landscape in the state (Lincove et al., 2015), we coded our variable for teachers’ certifications using four categories: university-based, alternative, district/charter and community college ^[1]. We then merged information aggregated at the school-year level to the school where each individual was employed. This included measures of school context (e.g., student demographics, school-level, teacher retention rate). And finally, we included THECB files allowing us to link higher education degree attainment information (associate’s/bachelor’s degrees) to each paraeducator and teacher in our sample.

Our analytic approach to answering RQ1 included descriptive and summary statistics with the goal of better understanding the average demographic characteristics and educational background of PCIP. Our decision to use a straightforward approach was grounded in prior literature suggesting the utility of low-inference statistical techniques when analyzing detailed longitudinal data (Loeb et al., 2017). As the key aim of this study was to better understand both the characteristics and context of an important group of prospective educators, these descriptive methods help illustrate this sector of the workforce in the three sample districts. Implementing descriptive and summary statistics for RQ1 also allowed us to better understand extant patterns in paraeducator demographic and educational characteristics, which facilitated the process of regression modeling for RQ2.

The key outcome variable used in answering RQ2, “promoted to teacher”, was a binary indicator of whether a paraeducator moved into a full-time teaching position (0 = remained a paraeducator, 1 = became a classroom teacher), in the following year (t +1). We estimated a linear probability regression model with this “promoted to teacher” outcome regressed on our main predictors, a set of teacher demographic and educational characteristics. We chose a linear probability modeling (LPM) approach over logistic regression because, as noted in similar recent investigations using large-scale administrative data, LPM provides more flexibility and results that are more amenable to policy and practitioner audiences, such as district leaders (Castro & Edwards, 2025; Edwards & Magill, 2024).

Specifically, we estimated the probability that a paraeducator within a specific school context was promoted into a teacher position in the following year as a function of a set of paraeducator demographic and educational characteristics and school characteristics. We included a variable indicating whether each paraeducator completed an associate’s degree and a separate variable indicating bachelor’s degree completion. These educational characteristics are directly relevant to district and university preparation program leaders for two key reasons. First, there are a growing number of GYO programs across the state which supports students in earning an associate’s degree en-route to a bachelor’s and teacher employment. Second, with uncertified teachers comprising a large share of the state’s newly hired teachers, many individuals enter classroom roles at varying stages of credential completion. The state institutions have formalized the associate’s degree as an intermediate step on paraeducator-to-teacher pathways, meaning it often signals an active credential progression rather than terminal attainment. The specific school characteristics selected for our model – such as average student demographics, student economic-disadvantage and teacher turnover rates – are linked to staffing vacancies in prior research (Ingersoll & Tran, 2023; Redding & Nguyen, 2020; Simon & Johnson, 2015).

Within our demographic and educational characteristics variables, we included the teacher certification categorical predictor mentioned in the prior section. We entered this variable into our model so that uncertified educators – individuals with no record of a teacher certification – represented the base group. Therefore, the coefficients corresponding to each certification type describe the relationship between a specific certification and the likelihood of promotion into a teaching position for a paraeducator, relative to a paraeducator with no certification. We made this decision because of the unique policy context in the state, where a statute passed by the state legislature allows individuals to be hired as full-time teachers without a state certification. In fact, during the timeframe of our study, statewide, there were over 40,000 teachers hired without a certification (TEA, 2024).

As shown in Table 1, compared to teachers, paraeducators in the districts studied were more ethnoracially diverse and had fewer years of experience working in schools. PCIP represented greater than 90% of all paraeducator-year observations in our sample. Almost half of all PCIP across all districts were Black paraeducators and around 46% were Latinx, with fewer than five percent of PCIP identifying as Asian or Native American/Indigenous. See Figure 1 for a visual representation of PCIP demographics relative to the demographics of teachers. Nearly 90% of PCIP identified as female. In terms of overall years of experience in education, PCIP had on average 5.9 years of experience, while teachers had 9.5 years of experience. And the average salary for PCIP was $20,613, compared to $53,436 for teachers.

Within Table 1, our results indicate that approximately one out of six PCIP in our sample held a bachelor’s degree. Eight percent of all PCIP held an associate’s degree. While most PCIP were uncertified, 17% had an existing teacher certification. Amongst PCIP with a certification, more than half earned their certificate through an alternative program, whereas about a third earned their certificate through a university-based program and around 15% attended either a district, charter or community college pathway. Compared to teachers, PCIP were more likely to hold an associate’s degree and to choose an alternative program pathway to obtain their certification. Shown in the final row of Table 1, we found that 4% of PCIP were promoted to teaching positions during the time frame of our study. We will return to a discussion of this outcome when we outline the results from our regression models later.

To answer the second part of RQ1, we drew on summary statistics to illustrate the context of schools where PCIP were employed. On average, PCIP worked in schools with similar characteristics as where a typical teacher in the three districts was employed. However, we did discover a few key differences worth noting. As shown in Table 2, we found that PCIP were more concentrated in elementary schools, compared to teachers. Seventy percent of PCIP were employed in elementary schools, compared to 55% of teachers. In schools where PCIP were employed, students of color (94%) and students who were economically disadvantaged (84%) represented the majority of enrollments. More than one-third of the students at schools where PCIP were employed were classified as having limited English proficiency. Finally, we found that the average teacher turnover rate at schools where PCIP worked was 28%, equal to that for all paraeducators and teachers.

In Table 3, we display regression results. First, the results suggest that Black paraeducators were less likely to move into a teaching position, compared to white paraeducators. The magnitude of that result was small, yet meaningful, when we consider that Black paraeducators represented nearly half of all PCIP in our sample. Moving to educational background predictors, we found that PCIP with a bachelor’s degree were more likely to become teachers and those with an associate’s degree were less likely to become teachers in the following school year. Finally, we found that attainment of any teacher certification was associated with PCIP moving into a teaching position, resulting in a 15–35% point increase in the probability that a PCIP became a teacher, compared to a PCIP with no certification.

To provide context to these coefficient estimates, across all years of data, we observed 1,584 PCIP with certifications move into a teaching position or 24% of the 6,611 PCIP with a certification. As the range in magnitude of our results suggests (0.15–0.35), there was notable variation in the relationship between preparation pathways and movement into teaching outcomes. For example, compared to PCIP with no certification, those who were certified through a community college and alternative preparation program were the most likely to become a teacher the following year, followed by those who were prepared through university-based and district/charter programs.

We also provide a visual representation of this relationship in Figure 2. Community colleges are access points for higher education and training known for lower barriers and environments more inclusive of non-traditional students who might have full-time employment or be head of their household (Long & Kurklander, 2009) – and therefore cannot attend a more traditionally structured program. Alternative pathways in Texas have increasingly offered online coursework as a way to gain market share of enrollments through increased flexibility. This could partly explain the patterns observed in our results, and we argue that the notion of more inclusive preparation with flexibility should inform the way that future university–district partnerships and pathway policies supporting PCIP are structured.

The purpose of this investigation was to generate data evidence for a partnership about the demographic profile of PCIP and the characteristics of the schools where they work, with the goal of informing more GYO teacher programs, such as paraeducator-to-teacher pathways. Our results indicate that PCIP represent an ethnoracially diverse, community-embedded group of potential teachers who already contribute meaningfully to their districts (Hamman et al., 2023). Nearly one-fifth hold at least a bachelor’s degree or certification, suggesting an immediate opportunity for university–district partnerships to scaffold career advancement through flexible, practice-based pathways. University programs can leverage this information to design targeted supports (e.g., mentorship, financial aid, culturally responsive coursework) that reflect paraeducators’ lived realities as working adults (Acosta & Holdheide, 2021; Fogle et al., 2024). District leaders, meanwhile, can use these findings to develop inclusive hiring pipelines and induction programs that recognize paraeducators as valuable contributors to district culture and community engagement.

For policymakers, in the current climate of widespread teacher shortages and turnover, university–district partnerships can act as stabilizing forces that not only address immediate staffing needs but also advance the broader equity goals of diversifying the teacher workforce. Results from this study illustrate how through data evidence, partnerships can be developed with a shared commitment to increasing the ethnoracial representation within the teacher workforce and can strengthen educator preparation, expanding opportunities for PCIP (Swanson & Duncan, 2025). By centering these partnerships as vehicles for systemic change, universities and districts can co-construct more inclusive, sustainable and community-rooted pathways into teaching (Gooden et al., 2011). In the following sections, we explore in more detail the way that our results engage with existing research and policy that is relevant to the university–district partnership literature base (Edwards et al., 2019). We also provide implications for future practice, policy and research in this area.

The purpose of this investigation was twofold. First, to inform key stakeholders within a university–district partnership, we set out to gain a better understanding of the demographic profile of PCIP and the characteristics of the schools they work in. We also examined the extent to which demographic and educational characteristics of PCIP were associated with movement into a teaching position. Our findings show a high extant level of ethnoracial diversity amongst paraeducators in our sample districts, where 90% of paraeducators were PCIP. This group of educators represents an existing ethnoracially diverse pool of potential teachers with prior experience in the school communities where they could transition as lead classroom teachers, as such our findings corroborate prior research and policy advocacy efforts (Gist et al., 2024; Garcia et al., 2019). Thus, these findings imply that in other similarly diverse teacher labor market contexts, paraeducators could continue to represent a valuable source of ethnoracially diverse teachers. University–school partnerships interested in addressing teacher shortages and expanding access may explore the demographic profile of their paraeducators and consider what opportunities may be available to transition them as teachers in the future.

This idea is further supported by the finding that many PCIP have an existing educational background that districts could help them leverage toward becoming a certified teacher – without having to start the degree/credential process from square one. Across all PCIP-year observations, nearly one-fifth had a bachelor’s degree and teacher certification and eight percent had an associate’s degree. PCIP with credentials qualifying them for a full-time teaching position were already district employees and likely had established relationships with schools, school leaders and a district HR office. This finding suggests university–district partnerships should tailor preparation programs for paraeducators with credentials.

Instead of generic support, they need targeted mentoring, networking and recruitment guidance to transition into teaching roles, ensuring more effective pathways for diversifying and strengthening the classroom workforce (Guha et al., 2017). Partnerships committed to tailoring responsive program designs may consider questions such as: What preparation programs are currently being offered for paraeducators in our school districts? Do these programs intentionally recruit, prepare and mentor potential teachers with some prior educational background? And if so, how do program graduates rate the programs and what are the teacher effectiveness and retention ratings of program graduates? And if such programs are not available to our school districts, where are they being offered in other parts of the state, and how can we learn from and/or partner with them to better serve our paraeducator pool?

Finally, our finding that PCIP with a teacher certification had an increased likelihood of transitioning to a teaching role is intuitive, yet it provides evidence that increased credentialing supports (e.g., mentorship, financial aid, university–district/preparation program partnerships) could strengthen the preparation to workforce pipeline for PCIP in other large metropolitan district contexts. Our results indicate that degree attainment and certification are associated with successful promotion into a teaching role, as they are likely to provide prospective teachers with the mentoring and career scaffolding needed to navigate the job market and succeed in the initial years of teaching (Carver-Thomas, 2018; Rosenquist & Hansuvadha, 2022). We suggest that future research – using a variety of methodological approaches – should seek to better understand how credentials for paraeducators are associated with longer-term workforce outcomes such as retention and student achievement impact. Schools can initiate this type of work by collaborating with university researchers to develop a research–practice partnership model focused on teacher workforce development. In doing so, the partnership’s teacher workforce development initiatives can be data-informed and based on the needs of schools and districts. In this way, school–university partnerships are centered around a research problem of practice related to teacher workforce development, use data to guide their understanding of the challenges and design appropriate interventions dedicated to the real-time solutions for schools and districts.

It is important to know the demographic context of paraeducator pathways in localized contexts as policymakers, educational leaders and community members plan to recruit, retain and support more ethnoracially diverse educators. Other similarly diverse labor markets could represent a source of ethnoracially diverse teachers and provide increased educational benefits for students who have access to these teachers in the future. However, these efforts to build pathways should be targeted and strategic in a way that leverages existing ethnoracial diversity amongst paraeducators and that provides support to district contexts facing the most acute staffing shortages (Camp et al., 2024).

Our findings underscore the need for a multilayered approach to support paraeducator recruitment, certification and retention. First, we recommend more comprehensive demographic analysis and data collection efforts for currently employed paraeducators at the national, state and district levels. This includes mapping paraeducators’ distribution across grade bands (EC-3, 4–5, 6–8, 9–12) and contextual factors such as school performance, teacher turnover and funding allocations. As a related data collection effort, we suggest examining ethnoracial, linguistic, gender, socioeconomic and educational attainment profiles, which can help educational leaders and HR managers more clearly identify workforce diversity gaps.

Second, further evaluating certification pathways for this group of educators is recommended. Quantifying available programs and analyzing candidate demographics, graduation rates, certification outcomes and job placements can help highlight disparities across program offerings and signal to educational leaders and policymakers’ examples of high-quality recruitment pathways (Bisht et al., 2021). Within-program resources like mentorship, tutoring, childcare and psycho-socio-emotional supports and their impact on completion rates should also be considered by leaders designing paraeducator-to-teacher pathway programs. Programs lacking these supports risk perpetuating barriers for underrepresented groups, particularly paraeducators of color (PCIP).

Finally, policy and practice reforms should prioritize funding incentives and participatory strategies. We recommend centering PCIP voices through surveys, focus groups and dropout analyses in an effort to identify structural barriers, such as financial burdens or institutional bias (Chopra et al., 2023; Theobald et al., 2025). Districts must then collaborate with stakeholders to design targeted interventions, such as affinity groups or streamlined certification processes, that align with paraeducators’ lived experiences. For example, increased funding for university–district partnerships where paraeducators are exposed to training and coursework that honors their status as a full-time employee and that utilizes a more inclusive curriculum avoiding known pitfalls of traditional teacher preparation models that are centered around white and middle-class norms and values (Amos, 2018; Andrews et al., 2019; Edwards et al., 2025; Gist et al., 2019). These policy innovations are aimed at the district and state levels and are considerations for better understanding and designing data-informed pathways for PCIP in similarly sized school districts.

Taken together, we argue that these recommendations can help advocate for a systemic, data-driven and partnership-focused framework to strengthen paraeducator pipelines, ensuring that this key group of educators receives equitable opportunities to advance their careers and bolster student outcomes (Polly et al., 2019). Ultimately, examining data and considering strategies that can responsively strengthen certification opportunities is just the first step. It will take a sustained collaborative commitment to iteratively research, refine and strengthen durable and responsive teacher development pathways for PCIP if we are to see them retained and sustained in the educator workforce.

The conclusions of this research do not necessarily reflect the opinion or official position of the Texas Education Research Center, the Texas Education Agency, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the Texas Workforce Commission, or the State of Texas.