For a decade, the Denver Teacher Residency was one of the country’s leading teacher training programs, providing hundreds of highly qualified, classroom-ready teachers for Denver Public Schools. While the residency ceased operations in 2018, DTR proved that the key elements of the residency model can be adopted and incorporated into district talent management systems at scale as the Denver Public Schools is now creating residency-like programs throughout the city in partnership with colleges, universities, and other providers. This research brief highlights key lessons learned by DPS, DTR, and other stakeholders in order to inform districts, universities, and others that may be interested in designing or refining a residency program as a human capital strategy.

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At NCTR we work with residency programs at all stages of their development, from new start-ups to established programs. Through our Residency Foundations and New Site Development Programs, we support local education advocates who are building viable teacher residency programs from scratch. It all starts with our Standards for Effective Teacher Residencies, our guideposts and benchmarks for the creation and development of high performing residency programs.

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For more than a decade the National Center for Teacher Residencies and our partners have been transforming how educators are prepared for America’s classrooms. We and our partners have developed a unique, comprehensive and effective training model that is similar to a teaching hospital’s medical residency for doctors. These programs train smart people to be great teachers. Our partner residencies produce graduates who outperform typical new teachers, and who are deeply committed to the schools where they trained.

The following materials and fact sheets tell the NCTR story of what we do, why we do it, and how we measure our impact.

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At the close of the 2016-17 school year, NCTR measured its impact by surveying our key our key stakeholders—residents, mentors, residency graduates and principals—who responded to critical research questions on student outcomes, teacher evaluations, and recruitment, selection, and retention. These one page overview documents provide a quick snapshot of our findings. In all, 418 residents, 320 mentors, 199 graduates, and 73 principals were surveyed. Find the full analyses of this data in our 2017 Stakeholder Perception Report. 

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Each year, the National Center for Teacher Residencies surveys residents, mentors, graduates, and principals to collect evidence of the effectiveness of residency programs, preparedness of residents, impact on schools, and performance of graduates. These perception data—coupled with other measures of student outcomes, teacher evaluations, and recruitment, selection, and retention data—contribute to a body of evidence that demonstrate the residency movement’s overall effectiveness and impact.

In school year 2016-17 NCTR surveyed partner residency programs across the country. In all, 418 residents, 320 mentors, 199 graduates, and 73 principals responded to the survey. Together, they represent 19 residency programs. The 2017 Stakeholder Perceptions Report analyses the data provided by these key stakeholders and answers key research questions to measure NCTR’s implementation and impact.

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Design for Impact is comprised of a guidance document, an overview slide deck, and an interactive spreadsheet that makes financial modeling calculations and forecasts. It is the result of a cooperative effort between NCTR and Public Impact.

The report, deck and spreadsheet make up a one-of-a-kind financial tool kit for residencies needing to develop and implement a sustainable and reliable financial plan.  To learn more or to access the interactive spreadsheet, contact NCTR at contactus@nctresidencies.org.

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For more than a decade teacher residencies have prepared classroom-ready teachers for hard-to-staff subjects and high-need schools. Across the country, mounting evidence shows that residencies produce effective teachers who stay in the profession longer and produce greater student achievement than traditionally-trained teachers.

No residency, however, can be truly successful if it is not financially sustainable. The financial challenges confronting new and existing residencies are complex, but they can be overcome with smart, intentional planning and strategic thinking. That’s why NCTR teamed up with Public Impact to develop Design for Impact, a suite of resources to help existing residencies become more sustainable, and to ensure that new programs start off on solid financial footing. Design for Impact guides programs as they collect and analyze financial data, and its interactive budgeting tool helps program leaders understand how different scenarios and decisions impact revenues and expenditures over time. In addition, Design for Impact helps programs understand the importance of cost sharing with their partners, and it will help them identify and secure new revenues as they negotiate with school districts, institutes of higher education, and community partners.

Design for Impact is a one-of-a-kind financial tool kit for residencies needing to develop and implement a sustainable and reliable financial plan. There’s nothing else like it. For more information or to access the financial modeling tool, please contact NCTR at contactus@nctresidencies.org.

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Through its work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a Teacher Preparation Transformation Center, NCTR has spent the last year and half collaborating with its fellow grantees through a Teacher Educator Work Group. The group created the Teacher Educator Practice Framework, a set of 12 practices that outline the skills and abilities teacher educators must have to improve novice practice.

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In 2017, NCTR worked with the largest number of programs in our history. Our strategic consulting group supported 14 new or emerging programs, while our Next Generation Network of established teacher residencies grew to 24. In addition, NCTR has partnered with the California State University System to transform the traditional teacher prep programs at seven campuses into residencies or programs that use NCTR’s standards of clinical teacher preparation.

Together, these residencies have trained approximately 3,500 teachers to work in high-need, low-income schools. Residency graduates teach close to 200,000 students nationwide, and our footprint continues to grow.

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The National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR) has helped launch and grow more than 30 teacher residencies since our founding in 2007. Starting in 2017, we worked with these residency partners, drawing on their collective expertise to examine how they implement practice-based preparation. In doing this, we learned that a critical first step for virtually all of these programs was to identify a core set of teacher practices and skills aligned to their district’s teacher effectiveness frameworks. We call these practices “High Priority Resident Practices,” because they represent a core set of practices and skills that set future teachers up for early success and support ongoing development.

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States and school districts can improve teacher quality — and student growth — by providing dedicated support for teacher residencies, ensuring that new educators enter the classroom ready to meet students’ needs from day one.

States and districts are increasingly turning to teacher residencies as a key strategy in improving student achievement and teacher effectiveness. The flexibility provided under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) facilitates this approach.

This report provides guidance to states for developing policy to incorporate residencies and other clinical-based preparation models into systems for preparing and supporting effective educators.

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Despite a growing body of evidence that a practice-based approach is the best way to prepare teachers, few studies to date provide tangible insight into how to move toward a clinical model. With the release of Clinically Oriented Teacher Preparation (COTP) in 2015, the National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR, formerly UTRU) set out to illustrate what preparation programs actually do as they transition to a clinically oriented approach; what the move toward practice-based preparation looks like; and what can be learned from programs across the nation that are transitioning to clinically oriented teacher preparation. The COTP Case Study Project (CSP) takes an in-depth look at the opportunities and challenges programs face as they instantiate each key shift. Through three case studies, NCTR digs more deeply into the lessons learned from and the struggles inherent in transitioning to a clinical model.

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A combination of factors created a perfect storm for Boettcher Teacher Residency’s burgeoning interest in rural school districts. The program had been serving urban districts with its teacher residency pro­gram since 2004, but was also well aware of the re­cruitment and retention challenges rural districts face.

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Each year NCTR analyzes a body of evidence on residency program impact and implementation to demonstrate how residents are prepared for the rigors of the classroom, to show early evidence of teacher performance and effectiveness in improving student achievement, and to collect stakeholders’ perceptions of the residency model core components and key participants. The Network Impact Overview provides a selection of this evidence showing that residencies are fulfilling their goal to strengthen teacher preparation and ensure new teachers enter the classroom ready.

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