February 7, 2023 — The National Center for Teacher Residencies’ (NCTR) SEED grant, “Centering Equity, Building & Scaling Teacher Residencies” (“Centering Equity”), builds upon NCTR’s 15 years of developing, supporting, and scaling teacher residency programs focused on meeting the needs of teachers of color and serving the needs of underserved students by developing and scaling 14 teacher residency programs for under-represented, diverse teacher candidates in Connecticut, Delaware, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The U.S. Department of Education funded “Centering Equity” in September 2022, and NCTR’s staff are fully engaged in executing the work we have been granted support to lead over the next three years.
“Centering Equity” offers NCTR an opportunity to work with great organizations that will help us scale and develop teacher residency programs, and over time, increase our impact. For example, we are very excited about our work with the Center for Racial Equity in Education (CREED). CREED is working with NCTR to convene historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in North Carolina with the goal of supporting them to develop a teacher residency program. We are also working with Education Resource Strategies (ERS) to develop additional resources and tools for teacher residencies to use to expand their financial sustainability strategies. Our work with the Teacher Development Network (TDN) is also off to a great start. TDN is working with NCTR’s consultants to develop new resources and tools to identify, train, and support the mentors whose support of teacher residents is key to their residency year experience. Finally, SRI International, our evaluator, is working with NCTR to determine the impact “Centering Equity” has over time.
We have also started providing support to several teacher residency programs in our Network as they scale their size and impact with a goal of serving more residents of color. Connecticut Teacher Residency Program (CT-TRP), Delaware State University, Elizabeth City Pathways to Teach, Nashville Teacher Residency (NTR), and RTR Teacher Residency (RTR) will each work with NCTR over the next three years to support teacher residents of color and implement strategies to ensure they complete their preparation and are hired in school districts.
Finally, we are very excited to have started our work with Winston Salem State University (WSSU) and East Carolina University (ECU). Both of these universities are developing new teacher residency programs with support from NCTR. These new teacher residency programs will support teacher residents of color and ultimately place them in school districts that partner with WSSU and ECU.
“Centering Equity” is a remarkable opportunity and we plan to share what we and partners are able to accomplish over the next three years.