May 3, 2022 – The National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR) has announced new efforts to help increase the number of Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) teachers in Texas, Arizona and Minnesota where teacher and teacher education program enrollment has declined in recent years. Specific plans include the development of two new teacher residency programs, support for existing teacher residency programs, and support for continuous learning and improvement through the development of lab sites to serve teacher residency programs across NCTR’s Network.
This expanded work is made possible through a grant from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies and will impact five teacher residency programs:
- Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth, Texas;
- Dallas College in Dallas, Texas;
- the Arizona Teacher Residency (AZTR) in Phoenix, Ariz.;
- Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU) in Marshall, Minn.; and
- the Minneapolis Special Education Teacher Residency (MSTR) and Saint Paul Teacher Residency (SUTR) programs at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.
The states these programs are located in have experienced a decline in enrollment in teacher preparation programs. The state of Arizona experienced a 5 percent decline in enrollment in teacher preparation programs, while Minnesota experienced a nearly 10 percent decline and Texas declined by 15 percent. The grant will support NCTR to both develop new teacher residency programs in Arizona and Texas and provide additional support to existing teacher residency programs in Minnesota and Texas. Additionally, NCTR will provide technical assistance to SMSU, MSTR, SUTR, and Dallas College to help develop programming to serve residents of color, ensuring that those residents have the resources they need to successfully complete a residency program and ultimately stay in the teaching profession.
All five programs are focused on improving their recruitment and retention efforts to increase their numbers of BIPOC teacher residents, and the grant will address this through the establishment of three lab sites. The lab sites will serve as examples to showcase and share knowledge and expertise with other teacher residency programs in NCTR’s Network. The lab sites will include: a lab in Minnesota with MSTR and SUTR based at the University of St. Thomas, which will focus on improving its number of BIPOC teacher residents and student outcome data; a lab in Texas based at Dallas College, which will serve as a hub for promising practices in the development of bachelor’s degree residency apprenticeship pathways within community colleges that serve early childhood or school system workforce needs; and a lab in the southwest based at the Arizona Teacher Residency that will implement NCTR’s Levers-aligned programming, which are standards for building and sustaining high-quality, equitable and effective teacher residencies.
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The National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing, launching, supporting, and accelerating the impact of teacher residency programs. Headquartered in Chicago, NCTR’s mission is to disrupt historical educational inequities by advancing the teacher residency movement to prepare effective, diverse, and culturally responsive educators. For more information about NCTR, visit www.https://nctresidencies.org/.