Our theory of system-level change and our role as intermediary.

This report is a collaborative policy recommendation developed through discussions among members of the New Mexico Alliance for Teacher Residencies, a collective of several organizations focused on teacher preparation and teacher quality in New Mexico.

A set of ideas and considerations to keep in mind when implementing substitute teaching as part of a teacher residency model.

In this case study, we present how New Mexico has created a cohesive statewide teacher preparation system that is rooted in deep collaboration between the state and the field.

Key considerations and potential solutions to ensure legislation supports residency programs to be consistent in quality, equitable for our teacher candidates, and sustainable for the long-term.

A quick guide to the top social platforms' benefits and considerations as well as a list of tips and resources to make the most out of your social media strategy.

Use this audit to improve your existing residency website or as a guide to create a new site.

Learn how to increase enrollment by centering affordability, increasing communicability, and streamlining navigation on your teacher residency website.

This PowerPoint provides an introduction to pre-service co-teaching and then details the seven co-teaching strategies.

A one-pager detailing the seven co-teaching strategies.

A PowerPoint presentation for an overview of the purpose and function of a teacher residency advisory group.

A new analysis of how Washington State—and other states too—can focus funding on developing a targeted plan to address special education needs through well-designed teacher residencies.

This teacher residency recruitment guidance can spark ideas for teacher preparation partnerships aiming to recruit future teachers from their own communities.

By recognizing and rethinking existing Human Resources and teaching and learning expenditures, district leaders can make the case that funding teacher residencies can be a sustainable long-term investment.

Prepared To Teach’s “Aspiring Teachers’ Financial Burden Survey” was created to capture data that turns anecdotes of hardship into change-making evidence that supports the case for paid clinical practice.

A recruitment brochure template that can be used with prospective educators, new mentor teachers, or districts looking to become partners with a residency program.

A clarified definition for "teacher residencies" supports discussions on residency design and the ability to attract, prepare, and retain a robust and diverse teaching workforce. The initial draft was co-constructed by the Teacher Residency Working Group, a collaborative group of Pathways Alliance members with expertise in residency development, support, and research.

Pre-Service Co-Teaching – where teacher candidates engage as co-teachers during student teaching – is a strong instructional model, especially when combined with yearlong teacher residencies. Using these combined resources, ideas, and activities, a residency partnership's preparation program school district members can create a shared understanding of pre-service co-teaching.

This white paper frames both the case for and an approach to addressing persistent teacher quality, diversity, and turnover challenges in the State of New Mexico. A growing set of research and promising practice informs the report, which is intended to offer a high-level understanding of the complexities around how the economics of teacher preparation both drives educational inequities and can be shifted to promote educational quality and equity by investing in paid teacher residencies.

Explore principles that Prepared To Teach has surfaced as helpful for designing Registered Apprenticeship Programs for teacher residencies to promote and support high-quality teacher preparation systems.

Residencies are eligible for federal ESSER dollars. Using ESSER funding to establish residencies that address areas with high teacher turnover will result in long-term financial sustainability for residencies. In all cases, well-designed residencies will improve instruction and educational outcomes for students. Review the research base and logic model below.

Prepared To Teach focuses on creating financially accessible pathways to teaching for aspiring educators because research shows that limiting costs to candidates can make a difference for schools, teachers, and students. Unlike other professional programs, teacher preparation includes few opportunities to earn while learning. By restructuring teacher preparation to be similar to medicine, we can alleviate financial burdens for students and recruit a more diverse, committed teaching workforce. This two-page document breaks down the potential of funded residencies to address these issues with point-by-point citations from the research.

This animated PowerPoint presentation shows different models for integrating aspiring teachers into the classroom to help with instruction while furthering their own learning. With more than a dozen examples, it's a helpful starting point for partnerships seeking to shift towards a more cohesive P-20 education system. The presentation includes voiceovers and timed animations. You can choose to present without these if you'd prefer. Settings are in the slideshow tab of PowerPoint.

Shael Polakow-Suranksy, GSE ’00, President of Bank Street College, and Karen DeMoss, Executive Director of Prepared To Teach, joined US Education Secretary Miguel Cardona for a fireside chat. During this important conversation, Cardona laid out his vision for supporting educators across the country and elevating the teaching profession before an audience of teachers and teacher candidates.

A high-level overview of the case for and to achieve a pathway to universal residencies nationwide can inform and clarify policy discussions at the U.S. Department of Education.

Reduction—one of our 3 R's of Sustainably Funded Teacher Preparation—helps universities maximize access to financial aid sources and minimize costs associated with quality programs. The Affordability Imperative focuses on making excellent teacher preparation affordable, spotlighting programs that successfully implement strategies to reduce costs to aspiring teachers.

Supporting aspiring educators during preparation is essential. The field is ready to embrace shifts that will make teacher preparation more uniformly strong, sustainable, and equitably accessible—investments in preparation will make such shifts possible. There is a case for a renewed commitment to excellent teacher preparation, made possible by federal investments.

Reallocation—one of our 3 R's of Sustainably Funded Teacher Preparation—helps partnerships redesign work roles to better support preparation efforts and to allow candidates to earn compensation during their clinical practice. Simple Shifts shares ways residents can bring value to the classroom and how districts and programs have leveraged the skills of aspiring teachers.

(Re)Investment—one of our 3 R's of Sustainably Funded Teacher Preparation—helps districts find ways to make shifts that can permanently embed residency funding into local budgets. The Residency Revolution is about identifying and maximizing the savings a high-quality residency program can bring to a district.

Teacher residency models have proven impact on four persistent teacher quality challenges: attracting strong candidates, teaching key skills, preparing for high-needs positions, and retaining talent. Prepared To Teach helps districts and preparation programs harness local strengths to develop residencies that meet their needs by preparing excellent, committed teachers.

Sharing partnership-focused learning across 12 teacher residency partnership sites during the 2019-2020 school year, Prepared To Teach reports on the development and co-constructed activities facilitated in its National Learning Network. These include highlights in six areas: sustainability, partnership development, program redesign, supporting school improvement, mentor development, and resident learning. doi.org/10.61625/XULY7940

To learn how teacher residencies across California fund their innovative work, the Learning Policy Institute and Prepared To Teach partnered to examine the current state of practice around residency sustainability. California teacher residencies with known financial sustainability efforts leverage local resources to support residents and mentor teachers. These concrete examples of creative residency funding strategies are meant to help California’s new investments in teacher residencies become sustainable over time.

When two people living together both contribute toward rent or pooling property to furnish their shared space, their rent and furnishings become mutual responsibilities with shared benefits. Some benefits might come with some compromises or extra responsibilities, but ultimately both people see long-term savings in return for their partnership together. Districts and preparation programs can take a similar approach to partnerships for residencies. When relationships are based on mutual trust and shared goals, all parties benefit.

This version 1.0 guide is focused on messaging about teacher residencies. It provides recommendations about branding, visual, narratives, and social media.

Recruiting, hiring, and onboarding new teachers is a major expense for districts nationwide. Filling a vacancy in an urban school costs about $20,000—and most districts hire tens, if not hundreds, of new teachers each year. Often, those vacancies are caused by early-career teachers who leave after a year or two. Since residency-trained teachers stay in their positions longer, districts can reduce spending on turnover by hiring from a pipeline of residents. Over time, savings on recruitment and hiring costs can help sustain the residency program and create a self-renewing investment in teachers.

School districts can adjust existing funding streams to support teacher candidates during their residency year. Examples include substitute teaching days for residents, professional development opportunities, and co-teaching alongside mentor teachers.

Programs from across the Prepared To Teach National Learning Network have creative staffing models that directly address staffing and substitute teaching shortages.

Created in response to discussions in New York State, including those held within the P-20 Collaborative and with stakeholders during the six years prior to the creation of this white paper, Prepared To Teach connects the importance of sustainable funding for teacher candidates as the state seeks to address persistent teacher quality, diversity, and turnover challenges. Offering a roadmap to funding candidates in clinical practice alongside an accomplished teacher, this paper offers support for discussions around how to provide the clinically-rich preparation necessary to counteract the impact teacher under-preparation has on systemic inequities.

Preparation program leaders can use these guiding questions to find more ways to reduce the financial burdens of their aspiring teachers, built from affordability lessons from our report, The Affordability Imperative: Creating Equitable Access to Quality Teacher Preparation.

This residency partnership sample MOU can be edited and adapted in ways that best fit local partnerships' needs and goals. The MOU includes collaborative goals and shared responsibilities, followed by specific program and district responsibilities.

Residency programs should explicitly outline expectations for residency programs. Many of these considerations also would be included in formal agreements between individual residents and preparation partnerships, for example, when residents must agree to serve as teachers in a district in exchange for receiving funding during the program. A sample agreement that incorporates these considerations is available below.

This sample Formal Resident Commitment Agreement is a skeleton for partnerships to use and edit in ways that best fit their needs. This formal contract model not only embeds expectations for the residency but also sets terms for residents' receipt of financial supports during the residency, such as agreements to take positions in a district once they have completed the program.

For a comprehensive look at a program budget, this Excel-based tool will estimate five years of costs and potential savings to assist in your immediate and long-term planning. Administrators or program leaders might find this especially helpful for considering shifts in teacher preparation programming.

A key consideration for building a residency partnership is articulating agreements that clarify each party's responsibilities—programs and schools or districts—and foster a shared understanding of the mutual goals and responsibilities the partnership wishes to embrace. Agreements can remain informal or can form the basis for a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). See a sample MOU below.

Sharing analyses from the national survey of aspiring teachers carried out by Prepared To Teach during the 2019–2020 school year, Beyond Tuition, Costs of Teacher Preparation dives into the income sources, expenses, debt, and work realities of aspiring teachers across the country and identifies where candidates need additional support.

By drawing on effective, lasting collaboration among stakeholders who have not traditionally worked together—both within and across organizational lines, programs can successfully identify sustainable funding sources for the long term. This report highlights nationwide programs that have successfully sustained and grown the commitments that ensure program development and longevity.

The current Prepared To Teach theory of change supports national communities of practice in five domains identified by the network's learning agenda in the 2019–20 school year: mindset shifts, educator roles, labor market alignment, school improvement, and deeper learning. These domains explore residency partnership programs, how individual programs both solidify and strengthen existing partnerships, and how to expand the benefits partnerships can reap through their work together.

The future of the teaching profession depends on improving access to quality preparation programs by ensuring that aspiring teachers are supported financially in their journey to becoming the best-prepared educators they can be. Conducting a survey at 12 institutions across seven states to explore aspiring teachers’ financial burdens, Prepared To Teach examines anxieties that aspiring teachers face during preparation, the difficult choices they are often forced to make in order to pursue their passion for teaching, and the impact this has on the quality and diversity of our nation’s pool of teacher candidates.

Teacher educators at Western Washington University's Elementary Education program and district administrators at Ferndale School District reconsidered their approach to teacher preparation. They revised residency-like work opportunities, the placement process, district "on-boarding" processes, and created responsive professional development throughout the residency.

With significant state investment, teacher residencies are spreading throughout California. These vignettes highlight two California teacher residencies and how they are helping to address shortages and support both students and teachers. These examples also spotlight creative funding strategies that can help California’s investments in teacher residencies become sustainable over time.

In order for teacher residencies to be successful, states and localities need to enact supportive policies that lay the groundwork for sustainability. Leaders can look to successful programs in New York State for principles that make sustainable policy possible.

Designing a residency requires attention to both long and short-term planning processes, all of which should be overseen by an inclusive group of stakeholders. By working together, advisory boards can develop expectations for the program and quality placement sites for residents. This deck shares Prepared To Teach’s perspective on creating a strong, inclusive advisory board to guide your work.

How we fund programs is at the root of the challenges in our current teacher preparation system. The economic challenges in our education system are well known, but in this report, we dive into the realities of funding for teacher preparation specifically—and call for creating a knowledge base about the system to support quality.

School leaders can structure budgets to make room for innovative programs, creative staffing plans, and new initiatives. Principals have the opportunity to do the same when it comes to residencies—and when they do, it’s not only aspiring teachers who benefit. The entire community sees positive impacts. Using funding models from California public schools, this report explores where there might be room for co-teaching in every public school classroom.

Sustainability must be part of residency program development from the earliest stages. Schools, districts, and preparation programs can leverage structures that facilitate strong partnerships and reduce student financial burdens—but those pieces need to be integrated into each step of the planning, design, and implementation process. This report examines how partnerships can work together to sustain residencies and create lasting change in our education system.

Teacher preparation programs that work for everyone—preparation providers, districts, and aspiring teachers—rely on strong partnerships. Residency programs bring districts and providers together to support sustained clinical practice for candidates and create aligned goals throughout the program, linking teacher preparation to success in the classroom.

It’s time to transform our system to ensure that teachers have the practice and support they need to be successful in 21st-century classrooms. Teaching is a clinical practice profession, and teacher preparation should reflect that. We believe that preparation programs and districts can work together to create a better system. This publication is our framework for change.

Residencies are eligible for all state and local funding because they fulfill the needs of P-12 students in meaningful ways—teacher residents lower student-teacher ratios, provide valuable small-group instruction, and support high-needs groups of students. Prepared To Teach clarified guidance from the DOE to identify how federal funding can apply to residency pathways and how districts can use these opportunities to integrate a pipeline of quality teachers and support school improvement initiatives.

There are great possibilities and benefits of residents taking on substitute teaching roles in the district. Dollars previously allocated to substitute teaching can be redirected toward candidate stipends while the cohort of residents meets substitute teaching needs.