To Attract Teachers, Arizona Offers Them Free College

Arizona public schools soon will get 200 new teachers as part of a new scholarship program that promises recipients free tuition at one of the state's three public universities for every year they teach in the state.

The scholarship program, the Arizona Teachers Academy, is one of the initiatives Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey proposed in January to help address a persisting statewide shortage of qualified teachers.

The Arizona Republic published a first-of-its-kind analysis in June that found 22 percent of 46,000 teachers across the state during the 2016-17 school year were not fully qualified to teach.  

According to a survey published Tuesday by the Arizona School Personnel Administrators Association, the state's schools continue to have difficulty filling all of their open positions with qualified teachers.