Just released!
CTQ and the Aspen Institute are proud to release a collaborative report, Creating and sustaining urban teacher residencies: A new way to recruit, prepare, and retain efffective teachers in high-needs districts. Also read about the potential impact of UTRs on traditional teacher education in CTQ's Urban teacher residency models and institutes of higher education: Implications for teacher preparation.

The Center for Teaching Quality, in partnership with the Aspen Institute and the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), has been investigating the urban teacher residency (UTR) — a unique response to the longstanding challenges of how to recruit, prepare, and retain bright and capable teachers for high-needs urban schools. UTRs represent a “third way” to prepare and, importantly, to continue to support cohorts of high-quality, diverse teachers who are committed to a long-term career in high-needs schools.

Funding from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations to NCATE supported CTQ’s exploration of the potential of urban teacher residencies to transform teacher education.. Researchers examined the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) in Chicago and the Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) — two of the nation’s most promising UTRs. While both AUSL and BTR are relatively new programs, early studies on their graduates’ effectiveness and their high retention rates of 90 to 95 percent suggest these models hold great promise for preparing and supporting teachers in high-needs urban schools.

In UTRs, aspiring teachers — known as Residents — are selected according to rigorous criteria aligned with district needs. Their master’s level course work is tightly integrated with an intensive, full-year classroom residency alongside a trained, experienced mentor. In their second year, they become a teacher with their own classroom while continuing to receive intensive mentoring. UTRs group candidates in cohorts to cultivate professional learning community and foster collaboration; build effective partnerships among school districts, higher education institutions and non-profit organizations; recruit and prepare teachers to meet specific district needs; support Residents once they are hired as teachers of record; and establish and support differentiated career goals for experienced teachers.

CTQ’s recent UTR policy papers offer several firm conclusions and also raise a number of important issues, including:

1. The costs and benefits of paying Residents during their year-long internship — and how the living stipends (ranging from $11,000 to $35,000 in different programs) might affect who can be recruited;
2. The readiness of a school district, institution of higher education and/or a non-profit organization to undertake the work of developing a UTR;
3. The identification of high-quality schools and classrooms in which to prepare Residents;
4. Where Residents are placed (and with whom) and how the classes they are assigned to impact teaching effectiveness and retention;
5. The availability of expert K-12 teachers to serve as mentors and coaches, and the readiness of teacher education faculty to prepare and induct Residents;
6. The role of school principals in assuring that Residents have opportunities to teach in the ways they were prepared—and generally providing the conditions necessary for effective teaching;
7. The challenges in developing leadership roles and professional compensation for Residents as they grow into expert teachers;
8. The misalignment of teacher salary dollars and professional development expenditures when compared with the need to fully support and pay for Residents who will teach in high-needs schools;
9. The lack of joint K-12 and higher education funding that could forge greater collaboration and cost-efficiencies;
10. The need for more convincing evidence of impact in order to build the political will to invest in these high-cost programs.