NCTR is the only organization in the nation dedicated to developing, supporting, and accelerating the impact of teacher residency programs.
Our core commitment is to build and develop teacher residencies as a lever to address the enduring and systemic inequities in school systems facing children of color and children living in low-income communities.
Our mission is to transform educator preparation
by advancing the teacher residency movement to prepare, support, and retain more effective educators who represent and value the communities they serve.
Students of color and students from
historically undersupported communities
have equitable access to effective, diverse, and culturally responsive educators.
Shannon Gray is a teacher resident at the Memphis Teacher Residency. This photo was taken at Cornerstone Prep.
Equity Commitment
NCTR believes that teacher residencies are the best way to recruit, prepare, and retain diverse, culturally responsive teachers to teach students of color and students from low-income backgrounds. NCTR is deeply committed to not just preparing teacher residents to teach students of color, but preparing teacher residents of color to teach students of color. In fact, 69 percent of teacher residents in NCTR Network residencies identify as people of color, as reported in our 2022-2023 Annual Report.
NCTR acknowledges the role of America’s educational system in systemic oppression and takes collective responsibility to challenge and correct these systems and structures. At NCTR, we advocate for a just educational system and believe that being a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization will better enable us to achieve our mission and improve outcomes for all the students, teachers, and programs we serve.
NCTR invites individuals from a diverse set of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives to identify challenges and enact solutions to teacher preparation challenges. We honor and celebrate each individual’s strengths and aspire to model diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are committed to providing resources and modeling best practices for our partner organizations, who seek to improve teacher pipelines and ensure all students have access to quality teachers.
By the Numbers
Teacher residencies have grown in scale and influence in recent years, and the national teacher residency movement has never been stronger.
62
NCTR Network members
77
NCTR Network member programs
17
Participating Residency Design Academy teams
18
Teacher residency programs preparing to launch
1,344
Teacher residency training sites
2,225
Teacher residents enrolled in NCTR Network member programs for 2023-2024
9,002
Graduates of current NCTR Network member programs (Cumulative)
Selecting, Recruiting, and Retaining Teachers of Color
Teacher residencies focus on schools serving our highest need and most diverse student bodies that historically have struggled to attract and retain well-prepared teachers of color to eliminate racial disparities in educational outcomes. Teacher residencies are designed to address racial disparities in educational outcomes through the preparation of effective, diverse teachers. They are designed to reduce the systemic barriers that discourage people of color from entering and remaining in teaching.
- 67% of teacher residents in NCTR’s Network identify as a person of color (NCTR Annual Report, 2023-2024), whereas only 21% of all new teachers nationally are persons of color (NCES, 2023)
- 23% of all teacher residents identify as Hispanic or Latinx/e (NCTR Annual Report, 2023-2024) versus 9% of the entire teaching field and 39% of teacher residents are Black (NCTR Annual Report, 2023-2024) compared to only 6% nationally (NCES, 2023)
- NCTR awarded over $3 million in grants to 29 teacher residency programs of the NCTR Network to recruit, prepare, and retain Black educators as part of NCTR’s Black Educators Initiative (BEI) (NCTR Annual Report, 2023–2024)
Maya Alston is a teacher resident at the Memphis Teacher Residency. This photo was taken at Grizzlies Prep.
NCTR is Generously Supported By
