Two federal bills on boys and men. Two!
Sen. Mark Kelley wants more men in our classrooms and in our communities
This is a good day. A very good day.
It has become increasingly clear in recent years that the lack of men in our classrooms and community institutions is a problem — for the organizations and professions; for men themselves; and above all for our kids.
As far as I can tell, no bill has ever been introduced in the U.S. Congress with the explicit goal of getting more men into K-12 teaching, or into mentoring, coaching, and community service.
Until today.
Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona just introduced not one but two bills: the Educators for America Act, to recruit more men into teaching, and the Building Community in America Act, to encourage more men into national and community service.
Companion bills are being led in the House by Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA-09), and Senator John Curtis (R-UT) has already signed on as cosponsor of the Building Community in America Act. For more details on the bills check out the fact sheets from Sen. Kelly’s office here and here.
I would be surprised if these bills do not attract wide bipartisan support in both Houses. Josh Hawley wants more male teachers. So does the American Psychological Association. Getting more men into service is not a controversial goal.
Policymakers at the national level are moving from acknowledging the challenges of boys and men to acting to solve them. As Sen. Kelly said explaining these efforts:
It’s not easy growing up these days, and young men especially are having a hard time. Positive role models — they do help. I know that from my own personal experience. My science teacher in the seventh grade — he was really tough, and he was also a guy that I think a lot of the young boys (I was in the seventh grade) — we looked up to him. And we need more of that right now. We need more male teachers and mentors and volunteers.
So I’m pushing to fix that by strengthening men’s recruitment into paid teacher prep and into national service programs. Strengthening the pipeline of teachers, mentors, and volunteers benefits everyone. And a lot of people have been doing this work already — in churches, schools, and neighborhoods. But we’re trying to add on to that, and together we can create more ways for Americans to answer the call to serve.
Sen. Curtis said:
At a time when too many young men feel lonely and isolated, we should be creating more opportunities to mentor, volunteer, and connect to a great purpose. By helping connect more young men to meaningful service and mentorship programs, our legislation will make our communities healthier, more resilient, and more connected.
Rep. Smith said:
Boys in this country are struggling—in school, in work, and in life. Part of the reason is that so many of them are growing up without men showing up for them, as teachers, coaches, or mentors. This legislation starts to fix that by getting more men into the classrooms and service programs where kids actually spend their time. I’m proud to lead this effort in the House.
More men at the front of the classroom
A quick recap for those who need it. In the early 1980s, men were 33% of public school teachers. Today that share is 23%. In elementary schools, just 11% — which is why most boys will get through elementary school without ever having a male classroom teacher. As Sen. Kelly points out, for the one in four American children growing up without a father at home, a teacher may be the only man they regularly see doing something constructive with his life. And with roughly one in eight teaching positions unfilled by qualified teachers, it makes zero sense to keep recruiting from only half the labor market.
What I really like about Kelly’s education bill is that it targets the pipeline — and specifically an important side door. The front door into teaching is an undergraduate education degree, and that route is now overwhelmingly female: only 17% of education BAs go to men. AIBM’s work shows that men are much more likely to come to teaching later, as a career change, via alternative routes — the engineer who becomes a math teacher at 35, the veteran, the coach. Some may come into teaching from college but without an education degree.
Teacher residencies, modeled on medical residencies, let candidates earn a salary while they train in a real classroom, with no prior education degree required. Kelly’s bill requires the federally funded residency programs under the Teacher Quality Partnership to make a proactive effort to recruit men. I was very pleased to see support for the bill from the impressive lead organization for this sector, the National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR). CEO Kathlene Campbell, Ph.D. said:
By supporting high-quality teacher residencies and encouraging efforts to recruit more men, and other underserved populations, into teaching, the Educators for America Act strengthens the educator pipeline and expands opportunities for students to learn from well-prepared teachers.
Full disclosure: I am especially partial to residencies because it is the way my own son made his way into teaching 5th grade in a Baltimore City public school: he was impressed by the professionalism and intensity of the program and adores being an educator. It is also noteworthy and encouraging that the National Education Association is supporting the bill: unions will be key partners in the effort to improve representation in the teaching profession.
Over at AIBM we’re proud to have helped launch the Male Educator Network and Policy Institute, led by Curtis Valentine, to lead a national effort to improve the representation of men in K-12 education. Sen. Kelly’s historic bill shows that this movement is building. A recent survey by M.E.N. and NORC found that 60% of male teachers were encouraged to enter teaching by another male teacher. That suggests that getting more men into teaching can create a virtuous cycle of inspiration, recruitment and brotherhood.
More men in the heart of the community
The second bill extends this logic past the school gates into the community. As Sen. Kelly notes, men account for just 28% of AmeriCorps volunteers. The waitlists for a Big Brother are far longer than for a Big Sister. Indeed, most youth-serving organizations do not have sufficient representation of men, as Robert Putnam and I argued in our New York Times article last year, “Boy Crisis of 2025, Meet the ‘Boy Problem’ of the 1900s”.
A RAND survey finds that one in four boys and young men lacks an adult male mentor they can rely on. Meanwhile, young men are among the loneliest people in America. These two facts are related.
Something I’ve become ever more convinced of as I do this work is that men need to be needed. Service is not just something men can give to their communities; it is something communities can give to men — connection, purpose, a reason to show up.
That’s why many governors are focused on male service, especially Wes Moore in Maryland, where the state service program is uniquely gender-balanced, and Gavin Newsom in California, who has launched a Men's Service Challenge with the goal of getting 10,000 more men into service roles in his state — a challenge that secured $5 million in the just-decided state budget.
The Building Community in America Act would prioritize federal funding for service programs that proactively recruit men, in exactly the places where male presence has thinned out: youth coaching and mentoring, after-school support, conservation corps, disaster response, violence interruption and reentry work, skilled trades and apprenticeships.
Two small but historic steps
Kudos to Sen. Kelly for leading this effort. Here’s what I said when his office asked me for a comment:
“We need good men — mentors, leaders, role models — in our communities and our classrooms. The best antidote to a bad man online is a good man in the flesh, in the lives of our boys. The declining share of men in teaching and the other helping professions should be setting off alarm bells across the country. Sen. Kelly’s bills are a serious effort to address the vanishing male teacher — the first of their kind. It is easy to talk about the importance of male role models. These bills actually do something to promote them.”
These are historic bills. For the first time ever, increasing the share of men in our classrooms and service organizations is the central and explicit goal of bills at the federal level. The permission space to acknowledge and act on the challenges of boys and men has widened significantly, and we are now seeing policymakers at all levels of government take up the cause. And take it up in a positive, non zero-sum way. There are already bills to create an Office of Men’s Health (and I expect more movement on that very soon), and to invest in the mental health of new fathers through the Dads Matter Act of 2025.
Of course there’s a long journey from introducing a bill to passing legislation; but you also can’t pass bills that haven’t been introduced.
So as I said, a good day. Please help spread the news!
The lack of men is a symptom, not the disease. These bills will have very little effect on outcomes (or even on the male headcount).
hopefully, normal guys will be attracted.
this is a good way around the 'alphabet brigade' and feminism lecturing about 'toxic masculinity'.