A Letter from Kevin Levay, Associate Director of Research and Evaluation
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I’m so pleased and grateful to have participated and met with many of our Network partners at NCTR’s Symposium last month in Chicago. It was an inspiring, joyful, and productive event. The good news is that we’re only just getting started!
As always, a key aspect of NCTR programming this year will be collecting, analyzing, and working through various data with our Network partners. NCTR’s data collection efforts have been essential to learning and sharing with others how our Network partners continue to grow, diversify, and advance equity within the teaching profession.
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NCTR Receives SEED grant from U.S. Department of Education
NCTR is very pleased to announce that we have been awarded a three-year, $6.7 million Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) grant from the U.S. Department of Education. 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. Ultimately, Centering Equity will directly serve 625 diverse, under-represented teacher residents; and impact 35,219 students in 412 school districts and charter schools, of which 354 are Title I schools. Read More
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Making Connections, Discovering Our Problems of Practice at Symposium --
Watch our Recap Video!
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Our in-person Symposium in Chicago was a blast, and we wouldn't have been able to celebrate the launch of a new programming year without the dedication of our Network partners. We were happy to welcome Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz as our guest speaker and talk about problems of practice (PoP) with residency programs. To support our underlying theme of self-care, attendees were able to join in a wellness walk and visual journaling exercise. See some comments from attendees below:
"My absolute favorite moment was the way you centralized Dr. Sealey-Ruiz's keynote to launch planning/thinking around our PoP. Hearing from her first refreshed the way I saw my PoP."
"This was my first Symposium, so I found EVERYTHING valuable. I am walking away feeling empowered to tackle the PoP, and looking forward to working alongside others with similar inquiries."
"I appreciated the opportunity to get to know other residencies, and engage in conversation about problems of practice with them. I also really benefitted from being able to dig in to a PoP with my team."
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Teacher Residencies In Action
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PEBC Receives First-in-Nation
Pay for Success Financing
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Nycole Bradshaw earned her teaching license through the PEBC Teacher Residency. This photo was taken at Crawford Elementary in Aurora Public Schools. Photo courtesy of PEBC Teacher Residency.
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The Public Education and Business Coalition (PEBC), one of NCTR’s Network partners, has recently finalized commitments for more than $1.4 million in investments from Northern Trust, the Gates Family Foundation, and the Denver Foundation for a first-of-its-kind Pay for Success financial model to scale their teacher residency program!
This ground-breaking Pay for Success funding model allows investors to provide funding to run an educator preparation program (EPP) and they receive a return on their investment if the EPP achieves the desired outcomes – in the case of PEBC, hiring and training teachers who will stay in the school district.
This investment will allow PEBC to train 335 new licensed teachers over the next three years in partner districts, including Aurora Public Schools, Durango 9-R school district, and multiple additional rural districts in Southwest Colorado.
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Arizona kick-starts its first-ever teacher residency program
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One of NCTR’s newer partners, Arizona Teacher Residency (AZTR), aims to put well-qualified, day-one ready teachers in front of students in the Tempe, Roosevelt, and Osborn districts as the first-ever teacher residency program in the state.
The AZTR team kicked off with a cohort of 24 residents who will earn a stipend (and potentially benefits), a tuition-free master’s degree, and ultimately a job within a partner district (Kunichoff, AZCentral, 2022). AZTR’s development comes along at a tumultuous time for teacher preparation in the state, as they face significant teacher shortages, and there has been a bill passed recently in response that no longer requires teachers to have bachelor’s degrees to teach in public schools (Heinsius, KNAU, 2022).
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Congratulations to our Network partners who were awarded a
Teacher Quality Partnership Grant!
Alder Graduate School
Frostburg State University
Alternative Pathways to Educator Certification (APEC)/Columbia College
To learn more about each of these projects, visit the U.S. Department of Education's TQP Grantees website.
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Findings from ATRP Evaluation To Inform Other Residency Programs
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In 2021, the Albuquerque Teacher Residency Partnership (ATRP) and the Thornburg Foundation contacted NCTR to conduct an evaluation of the ATRP program. NCTR, with the collaboration of ATRP and fellow supporters, released its report that looks at the first three years of program implementation of ATRP and offers a preliminary examination of its early impact. The findings will hopefully inform promising strategies to support policy work and financial sustainability of residency programs.
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CTC Announces $350 Million to Support California Education
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The Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) is running three competitive Request for Applications (RFAs) to help distribute $350 million in funding from the California state budget to enable school districts, county education offices, and institutions of higher education to partner together to build, implement, and expand teacher residency programs. At the heart of these funding opportunities is the goal to address the disproportionality between students of color and teachers of color. The RFAs also require partners to use data and build, expand, or implement a teacher residency that addresses local teacher shortage areas.
NCTR has supported California residency programs since 2010 and is currently supporting several teacher residency programs across the state either through our NCTR Teacher Residency Design Academy (RDA), the Residency Lab, NCTR Network membership, or through a Tailored Consulting package. Please reach out if you are interested in learning more about NCTR’s support to California residency programs by contacting Jill Pitner at jpitner@nctresidencies.org.
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Educators for Excellence's Voices from the Classroom 2022
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Educators For Excellence released its Voices from the Classroom 2022 report that showcases the perspective of educators in the field, especially BIPOC teachers, looking at the critical issues that students, school systems and the teaching profession face. Read More
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Network Noteworthy
Annual Program Survey Data is
Almost Here!
NCTR will distribute surveys to all Network partners on Monday, October 31 to be completed by Friday, January 20. Each year NCTR conducts this survey to learn about partners’ program designs and operations, total numbers and demographics of applicants, residents, graduates, and mentors, and graduate placement, licensure, and retention. NCTR partners can use these data to demonstrate program growth and impact, and advocate for policies and funding that support residency programs and DEI in the field.
See our Data Collection Calendar to learn about what data NCTR collects and visualizes for Network partners, and when. Please note that to support greater participation and enhance data quality, this year, NCTR will only be conducting surveys of all program stakeholders once toward the end of the school year. If you have any questions, please contact your NCTR coach or NCTR’s Associate Director of Research & Evaluation, Kevin Levay, at klevay@nctresidencies.org.
New Programming This Year: Community Learning Experiences
NCTR Network members are in for a treat this year! NCTR presents Community Learning Experiences as a means to elevate NCTR experts to help deepen and sustain the complex work of all residency staff. Touching on a variety of subjects that support residencies, including policy and financial sustainability, Community Learning Experiences provides well-rounded offerings over the course of the year that can be beneficial for a particular area within a teacher residency program or all staff to support cross-functional collaboration.
Be on the lookout for future emails about Community Learning Experiences!
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No job opportunities are listed at this time.
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