Resources

Educators and policymakers in California are faced with an ever-growing urgency to address chronic teacher shortages, which disproportionately affect lower-income students and students of color. Teacher residencies—programs that integrate credentialing coursework with a clinical placement in the public school classroom of an expert mentor teacher—have shown promise helping districts to meet specific workforce needs, diversify their workforce, and retain residency completers in high-need schools.

In an effort to develop long-term solutions to meet the need for diverse, well-prepared educators in high-needs areas, the state of California dedicated $75 million in 2018 to develop and expand teacher residency programs across the state through the California Teacher Residency Grant program. The grant-funded residencies are led by partnerships between school districts and colleges or universities, and are specifically focused on preparing STEM, bilingual, and special education teachers to teach in high-need schools.

This report summarizes learnings from the grant’s first year of implementation, 2019–20. It presents early evidence on leading indicators of employ­ment outcomes, findings about how central aspects of grantee partnerships are func­tioning from the perspectives of key stakehold­ers, and learnings about how COVID-19 and associated school closures impacted residencies.

Read the Executive Summary.

Learn more about WestEd’s Formative Evaluation of the California Teacher Residency Grant Program.