Submitted by The Evergreen State College
Since 1990, The Evergreen State College’s Master in Teaching program (MiT) has prepared educators for the challenges of the teaching profession while emphasizing a commitment to social justice and a community-responsive curriculum. MiT is a graduate education program for those interested in teaching in the Washington State K-12 education system. Accredited by the Washington State Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB), the program maximizes the unique backgrounds and knowledge of the program’s instructors and its 22 partner school districts to prepare teacher candidates for careers that address the state’s areas of highest need. Evergreen’s MiT program features several career-enhancing opportunities: dual endorsements, including an English Language Learner endorsement, and enrollment into the program through alternative routes for those individuals who are current public-school employees. New teachers with master’s degrees in Washington earn $12,000-$15,000 more per year than their peers with bachelor’s degrees.
Dual Endorsements Broaden Skills and Increase Employability
Endorsements on a teaching license indicate which content areas and grade levels teachers are qualified to teach. Evergreen’s MiT program offers endorsements in multiple areas, including some that are offered at only a few places in Washington State. Endorsements include Secondary English Language Arts, Social Studies, Mathematics, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Theatre and Visual Arts, as well as Elementary Education. In addition to specific content areas, all teacher candidates earn their English Language Learners (ELL) endorsement.
Meeting the Needs of a Diverse Classroom
Evergreen’s MiT program prepares teacher candidates to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse classroom. According to the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), by 2025 one in four K-12 students in the U.S. will be classified as an English Language Learner. The MiT program helps teacher candidates develop practices that ensure equitable access to the curriculum for all learners. These practices include navigating challenging discriminatory structures; ensuring access to high-quality learning experiences for all; placing the U.S. education system within its historical and philosophical contexts; affirming the importance and validity of linguistic and cultural pluralism; aligning content and language for multilingual learners; and cultivating curiosity through authentic partnerships and action research. Evergreen’s MiT graduates are prepared to meet the needs of multilingual students in content area classrooms, because every ELL student is a general education student first. One recent graduate of the MiT program described its value, saying, “Even if I’m not employed as an ELL teacher, I do understand that multilingual learners are present in every class, and the strategies that best assist them are useful for all varieties of students.” The inclusion of multilingual learners in classrooms and school communities is a core component of MiT’s educational philosophy.
Alternative Route Enrollment Provides a Path to Currently Employed Education Professionals
Evergreen has partnered with North Thurston and Shelton Public Schools, as well as the Olympia School District to offer alternative route enrollment in the MiT program. Alternative route enrollment is designed for school district employees and conditionally licensed teachers with bachelor’s degrees to continue working and earning a living while earning their master’s degree and teaching certification. This route offers flexibility while still providing a rigorous curriculum. The alternative route program helps schools tap into the potential of diverse and unique individuals already present in their school communities.
MiT’s Unique Cohort Model
Teacher candidates in the MiT program are enrolled in a cohort, learning alongside peers in all content areas and grade bands. The cohort benefits from a multi-layered system of support from faculty, staff, and mentor teachers using a multidisciplinary pedagogy to insure the best education for the future teachers. MiT students finish their degree in four quarters. The program starts in summer and continues full-time through spring. Summer classes are a combination of in-person and online learning. Then, during the academic year, classes are held after school hours and on the weekend, primarily in-person at Evergreen’s Olympia campus. Teacher candidates complete their practicum hours during work hours, followed by full-time student teaching in the spring. Graduates of this pathway receive a master’s degree and recommendation for a teaching certificate at the end of the program.
Tradition of Teaching Excellence
Evergreen MiT alumni are leaders of change in schools throughout Washington, the nation, and the world. MiT has produced two Washington State Teachers of the Year, one National Teacher of the Year Finalist, as well as numerous building and district level leaders and local Education Association (union) representatives. MiT alumnus Wayne Au ’96, dean of the School of Educational Studies at the University of Washington, Bothell, credits the nontraditional grading system of narrative evaluations at Evergreen for sparking his deep professional engagement with the intersection of high stakes testing and educational equity. Au is a nationally recognized scholar of educational equity and an outspoken advocate for actively anti-racist teaching. His doctoral dissertation was later published as the highly influential book, “Unequal by Design: High-Stakes Testing and the Standardization of Inequality.”
Mentor teachers in Evergreen’s 22 partner school districts are excited to work with MiT teacher candidates. Evaluating their teacher candidate at the end of the student teaching experience, one mentor teacher says, “[the MiT teacher candidate] taught me more about classroom community” and “did an amazing job fostering community in our class”.
Evergreen’s MiT program believes that teachers are the heart of public education: as activists centering social justice and a joy for learning, as members of the community engaging and empowering school and community voices, and as stewards of equity and sustainability.
Applications for the ’25-’26 MiT cohort are open now. The application deadline is March 31, 2025. Please reach out to mit@evergreen.edu for more information or The Evergreen State University website to apply.
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