Effective teachers need rigorous, practice-based training with extensive clinical experience to succeed from their first day in the classroom and beyond. Teacher residency models, often operated in partnership between educator preparation programs and school districts, offer a pathway to teaching that provides candidates with intensive clinical experience and mentorship from seasoned educators.

New research briefs from the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) shed light on Texas’s teacher workforce and preparation pathways, and the promising impacts of Texas’s recent investments in effective teacher preparation.  

The Charles Butt Foundation co-sponsored a webinar alongside Raise Your Hand Texas and LPI. The hybrid learning opportunity featured a presentation by Jennifer Bland, a senior researcher at LPI, who synthesized recent research on residencies in Texas from LPI and other organizations. Bland outlined the key characteristics of high-quality teacher residency programs. She also discussed the implications of Texas’s recent investments in paid teacher residencies and how the state can maintain momentum in developing a high-quality, resilient teacher workforce.

Key Takeaways from the Learning Policy Institute’s Texas Teacher Residencies Research Briefs:

The challenge:

1. Teacher preparation, certification, experience, and retention all shape student achievement.
2. Strong preparation improves retention, benefiting students and district budgets.
3. Students of color and those from low-income families are more likely to have underprepared, inexperienced teachers.
4. High costs make traditional preparation routes inaccessible for many aspiring educators.

Components of high-quality residencies:

1. Teacher candidates get hands-on experience for a full academic year alongside expert mentor teachers, gradually assuming more responsibility, before leading their own classrooms.
2. At the same time, candidates also do coursework from educator preparation programs, which is tightly integrated with residency experiences.
3. Strong partnerships between preparation programs and school districts support effective program design and progress monitoring.
4. Some residencies provide stipends to alleviate financial barriers, making high-quality preparation more accessible.

The promise of teacher residencies:

1. Residency-trained teachers remain in Texas classrooms at higher rates, reducing turnover.
2. This can lower vacancy rates, potentially saving districts millions of dollars in recruitment and training costs.
3. Texas students demonstrate higher achievement in classrooms led by residency-trained teachers.
4. Student learning outcomes improve when a mentor teacher and a paid resident are in the classroom together.
5. These programs foster strong collaboration between educator preparation programs and school districts, strengthening the entire teacher pipeline.
6. In interviews with LPI researchers, school and district administrators from across the state were highly enthusiastic about hiring residency completers due to the quality of their preparation. 

We heard over and over from district and school administrators that residency-trained teachers are unusually prepared to take on teacher of record positions. A principal from West Texas said, ‘They’re at a totally different level than brand-new teachers … they’re so prepared. I have never met teachers who are brand new who are this prepared for the classroom.’

Jennifer Bland, senior Researcher, Learning Policy Institute

Based on calculations by Kevin Bastian and his team at the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina, if all Texas teachers—regardless of their pathway into the profession—had the same retention rates as paid residents, there would have been 3,600 fewer teacher vacancies across the state in 2023-24. Using LPI’s teacher turnover cost calculator, this would have saved districts anywhere from $43 million to $90 million.

Jennifer Bland, senior Researcher, Learning Policy Institute

Following this presentation, a dynamic panel discussion took place featuring Dr. Josh Jones, director of educator preparation at Tarleton State University and a participant in the Charles Butt Foundation’s University Partnership Program, and Steven K. Wojcikiewicz, a senior researcher and policy advisor at LPI. The discussion was facilitated by Max Rombado, legislative director at Raise Your Hand Texas, connecting research insights to real-world practitioner experiences.

Stay Engaged: Watch, Discover, and Join the Conversation

If you missed the webinar, you can watch the recording below and explore LPI’s research briefs on teacher residencies in Texas, as well as research findings on residency outcomes in Texas from Texas Tech and the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina. LPI’s briefs offer detailed analyses of implementation strategies, educator perceptions, and policy considerations essential for sustaining and scaling residency programs statewide. To learn more on how to advocate for a strong teacher workforce in Texas, follow our colleagues at Raise Your Hand Texas.