What's Going On at NCTR?
Last week, NCTR traveled to Texas to visit the Dallas Teacher Residency (DTR) as part of an effort to document and share best practices in teacher residencies. The project will produce a series of videos that highlight how residencies are developing strong district partnerships, designing their Residency Year curriculum, and investing in teacher educator professional development–among other topics. During the visit, NCTR interviewed DTR leadership, residents, mentors, and program partners to understand their work, and document how they overcame the challenges of building a residency.
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Elizabeth Kastiel, co-founder and president of the Dallas Teacher Residency, discusses some key components of teacher educator professional development.
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Partner Updates
The AppleTree Institute for Education has won a two-year grant from the District of Columbia’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education. The grant will help further develop the AppleTree Early Learning Teacher Residency and increase its impact on teacher recruitment, training, retention, and student achievement. The residency recruits early childhood educators to work at AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School and AppleTree partner charter schools in Washington, DC.
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Featured News
Using Data to Address Teacher Shortages
The National Center for Teacher Quality (NCTQ) released a report on how states are using data to tackle teacher shortages and surpluses. “Databurst: Teacher Shortages and Surpluses,” reports that 29 states currently maintain data systems to track teacher preparation programs, but only eight use that data to enact policies to address shortages and surpluses. The report asserts that “it is incumbent upon states to develop explicit policies that hold teacher preparation programs accountable for meeting local hiring needs.” This type of data is particularly important for residencies because of their focus on recruiting, preparing and supporting teachers that meet the human capital needs of their partner districts.
NCTQ shared promising practices from four states that are working to address short- and long-term hiring needs in local schools. Maryland, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Tennessee are employing needs assessment and staffing data in their teacher recruitment and retention strategies. The report also includes high level teacher supply and demand data collected by each state, and noteworthy updates on regional data collection practices.
The report includes five recommendations to support the creation of policies that address district-level hiring needs:
- Collecting teacher labor market data at the local level;
- Collecting data on teacher preparation program graduates, including completion rates and certification area, as well as data on hiring and retention;
- Explicitly connecting program supply data to district-level demand data to identify areas of shortage and surplus;
- Using existing data to predict potential areas of over- and under-production in future years, and;
- Requiring preparation programs to limit the number of candidates that can be prepared in each certification area based on existing and predicted need.
Read more about the report in Education Week.
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