The US Department of Education Cancels Triad Universities – WFDD grant.

The US Department of Education has canceled over $ 600 million grants to educate teachers across the country.

This affects the universities in the triad.

Winston-Salem Teach is a partnership between Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem University and Salem College, which works to create a pipeline for high-quality high-needle teachers.

The bigger part of their funding – about 80% – comes from a grant to partnership for the quality of teachers provided by the US Department of Education. Last week, their $ 4.7 million grant was unexpectedly canceled.

Winston-Salem Teach Executive Director Kate Alman says that funding was largely used to pay scholarships to school students to become teachers.

“So the scholarships allow them to focus on learning how to be an excellent teacher, and this can be their only focus when they go through their master’s program, instead of having to juggle this at the top of work,” she says.

And when students receive this scholarship, they agree to serve for three years in local school for Title 1, where the majority of children come from origin with low incomes.

“This will immediately affect our Title 1 schools and our ability to put really excellent teachers there,” she says.

Winston-Salem Teach had planned to allow 34 finalists in his third cohort last week. Now, Alman says they are struggling to redirect funding to cover their scholarships and seek additional support from the community.

The grant should have ended in 2027, so Alman says the cancellation came as a complete surprise.

“I thought that the grants for teacher training, especially those in investment in schools with high need and share, would be protected as it was such a big need, but we were one of the first cuts,” says Alman.

The State University of Winston-Salem says the notification that the grant was canceled, said the program encouraged or participated in the initiatives of DEI.

At the University of High Point, a spokesman says that cancellation of grants will also affect the educational specialties of 88 education.

Amy Diaz covers WFDD education in partnership with Report for America. You can follow it on Twitter at @amydiaze.