Frequently Asked Questions:
Getting Started with EdRising

How to Get Started

Who is teaching and leading the Educators Rising experience?

A teacher leader from your own faculty. The strongest ones are teachers already invested in developing future educators — you probably know who they are. Many educator prep programs have been taught by Family and Consumer Science faculty, but Educators Rising chapters are led by educators from mutiple backgrounds and experiences. Check with the state you’re in for requirements for teachers leading CTE programs for the education and training pathway. 

How do schools fund our program?

Most districts fund it from existing budgets. Title funds can apply, and where Educators Rising is the CTSO for your CTE programming, Perkins fundings can apply. In some cases we’re working with states that have received grant programs to fund their programs.

Plenty of schools start without any of that. Teachers build chapters from the ground up, working with fundraising activities to support student dues. The cost for a chapter includes national dues and some states also have dues. Other costs include those for student activities and travel to events, and some districts may use our resources, such as curriculum or micro-credentials to add value to their program. 

Is EdRising a class or a club?

While some districts start EdRising as an extra-curricular experience, we recommend schools adopt our program as a co-curricular experience, as part of a CTE program focused on the education and training pathway. While each state has specific guidelines for CTE programming, the CTE experience opens access for students to experience practical teaching as part of the program. Some students may first experience EdRising as a middle school experience, which can feed into a high school CTE program.

What’s in the Curriculum? And is it required?

The purchase of Educators Rising Curriculum is not required to have an Educators Rising experience in your school.

That said, Educators Rising worked with national partners to build a robust program, built upon our own standards, with a recommended scope and sequence, a digital assessment platform aligned to each of over 50 lessons that can be flexibily utilized in a 1-4 year program. The curriculum covers not only instructional best practices but also career exploration. 

In 2025, we released our newest version of the Educators Rising Curriculum which includes core lessons in addition to supplemental lessons. There is more than enough content to cover a two-year CTE instructional program.

Because the lessons are delivered as PowerPoint files, teacher leaders can easily modify the files to address localized content and examples germain to your own district (e.g. lesson plan format, local curricular examples for younger students).

Dual Credit Options

Many schools across the nation today are offering dual-enrollment or dual-credit options for their high schoolers. This is a boon to pre-educators as these programs can reduce the ultimate cost of becoming a certified teacher. Traditional programs can help students take care of general liberal arts credits required for their degree ahead of starting a four-year program. 

There are also opportunities to work with local institutions of higher education to provide access to education-specific coursework while students are in high school. 

How do I register my chapter?

A middle or high school chapter needs one teacher leader and one student. A collegiate chapter needs an adviser and two students.

Register or renew through the membership portal and complete the application for your level — Middle and High, or Collegiate. Students get access to chapter resources once dues are processed.

How are the Educators Rising Micro-credentials used?

Our Micro-credential stack are performance-based assessments designed to showcase the skills and competencies acquired by a student who has worked through an Educators Rising experience; they are aligned to the Educators Rising Standards and Curriculum.

Students or teachers may elect to use these assessments as a program completion option. In many states, a prescribed assessment such as the ParaPro test serves as part of the CTE completion requirement. We currently have several university partners that are using our micro-credentials as an option to offer students to receive a number of credits toward their education degree.

Check out our Grow Your Own webinar library for videos on a number of topics related to Educators Rising chapters and curriculum.