Evaluation of Teacher Residency Programs

Teacher residency programs are rapidly increasing in popularity, as a potential way to address persistent needs for high quality teachers. This form of teacher preparation combines coursework with extensive on-the-job training in schools under the guidance of experienced mentors. The programs also typically place new graduates in hard-to-staff positions, most often in the same low-income or lower-performing districts where they trained. This approach may be promising, as underscored by recent changes in the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) which now allows states and districts to use Title II funds to support teacher residencies. But so far there is little systematic information about the specific strategies they employ or rigorous evidence that they are more successful than other ways of preparing teachers to work in high need schools. This study would have provided the first large-scale in-depth description of all current teacher residency programs in the United States, focusing on the strategies used to improve the effectiveness and retention of teachers from these programs and the extent to which they help meet district needs.