Teachers are Leaving at an Unprecedented Rate...

Quality Programs are the Solution

Research and experience tell us that the greatest factor in student achievement is the classroom teacher and our most marginalized communities that need and deserve our highest quality teachers are losing teachers at unprecedented rates*, largely due to coming from lower quality educator preparation programs rendering them less prepared to think critically about their context and equip students with the mindsets, skills, and attributes to take on and overcome the challenges we collectively face and will face in the future.

Teachers are Leaving at an Unprecedented Rate...

Quality Programs are the Solution

The greatest factor in student achievement is the classroom teacher and our most marginalized communities that need and deserve our highest quality teachers are losing teachers at unprecedented rates, largely due to coming from lower quality educator preparation programs rendering them less prepared to think critically about their context and equip students with the mindsets, skills, and attributes to take on and overcome the challenges we collectively face and will face in the future.

We - a group of leading Educator Preparation Transformation Centers - are working together to expand access to high quality programming to all teacher candidates.

Welcome to your toolkit for designing, supporting and scaling a

high-quality, sustainable, and accessible educator preparation program.

This toolkit includes resources that have been cultivated and leveraged by the US PREP Coalition of universities (22 colleges of education at the original publication of this toolkit) and trusted partners across the United States.

While the resources, tools, and examples provide proven approaches to scaling high-quality programs, they also highlight that there is much work to be done in order to transform programs efficiently to meet the ever increasing need for the highest quality teachers.

These resources exemplify the incredible promise that exists for scaling, sustaining, and making accessible a quality program for all future teachers. Making excellence the norm for candidates and schools will require all of us. Thank you for your continued commitment and efforts towards our common cause of disrupting inequities in PK-12 schools across the nation.

Why Scale?

Research and experience tell us that the greatest factor in student achievement is the classroom teacher and our most underserved communities that need and deserve our highest quality teachers are losing teachers at unprecedented rates*, largely due to coming from lower quality educator preparation programs rendering them less prepared to think critically about their context and equip students with the mindsets, skills, and attributes to take on and overcome the challenges we collectively face and will face in the future.

The Bad News
- Teacher shortage in the highest needs schools and subjects
- Lack of preparation to take on challenges faced daily in education
- Teacher candidates must be adequately prepared to be highly effective instructors on day one of instruction especially for marginalized students
- New teachers are generally less effective than their more veteran peers yet are more likely to teach students of color and students experiencing poverty.***
- Limited access to high-quality preparation is program affordability and access for candidates
- State policies enable lower-quality programs to grow to address shortages
- Often the most diverse candidates are forced to choose lower quality programs or don’t consider the profession at all

We - a group of leading educator preparation programs - are working together to expand access to high quality programming to all teacher candidates. Through grappling with the vexing challenges we face and grounding our work in a shared vision and criteria for EPPs, we have cultivated an encouraging and ever-growing base of knowledge to share and support positive change.

The Good News
- Better prepared educators are more likely to stay in the profession**
- High-quality yearlong residencies can and do grow, and completely scale across all programs and pathways in an educator preparation program
- The effective use of data across different contexts drives change
- Forging strong partnerships will strengthen preparation programs and communities
- EPPs that implement sustainable, quality programming at scale produce more teachers that are better prepared to positively impact outcomes for Black and Latino students and students experiencing poverty
- Focusing on scale can help address the challenge of inequitable access to the high-quality programming of teacher residencies
- A proven method that enables and supports the capacity of EPPs in scaling teacher residencies is now at your fingertips: The Scaling TOOLKIT

This toolkit demonstrates that yearlong residencies and, most importantly, access to a high-quality preparation program, are both deserved by and possible for all future teacher candidates in this nation.

*Garcia, E., & Weiss, E. (2019). U.S. schools struggle to hire and retain teachers. Economic Policy Institute. https://www.epi.org/publication/u-s-schools-struggle-to-hire-and-retain-teachers-the-second-report-in-the-perfect-storm-in-the-teacher-labor-market-series/

**Rosenberg, D., & Hawley Miles, K. (2018). Growing Great Teachers. Growing Great Teachers Report. https://www.erstrategies.org/tap/growing_great_teachers_report

***Cardichon, J., Darling-Hammond, L., Yang, M., Scott, C., Shields, P. M., & Burns, D. (2020). Inequitable opportunity to learn: Student access to certified and experienced teachers. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.