VCU news

By Leila Ugincius

The Virginia Commonwealth University School of Education will partner with the National Center for Teacher Residencies to accelerate the impact of effective teacher residency programs and broaden the adoption of research-based preparation practices.

The NCTR has received $6.8 million to become a Teacher Preparation Transformation Center as part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation initiative. Partnering initially with 17 residency programs — including the VCU School of Education’s Richmond Teacher Residency program — NCTR’s Transformation Center will expand the residency model to 30 providers nationwide and will prepare more than 2,500 new teachers for high-need schools.

The Richmond Teacher Residency program, a partnership between Richmond Public Schools and the VCU School of Education, is an intensive, school-based teacher-preparation training program. RTR addresses the unique challenges of preparing teachers for urban education – both at the secondary level and at all levels for those preparing to teach special education (K-12). To date, 60 teachers have completed the program, and 16 are part of the current class.

“Richmond Teacher Residency is thrilled to be a part of this groundbreaking Gates Foundation initiative to transform teacher preparation in the United States,” said Therese A. Dozier, Ed.D., director of the Center for Teacher Leadership and the RTR program at the School of Education. “Our role as a provider with the National Center for Teacher Residencies Transformation Center affirms the innovative work that the VCU School of Education is doing in partnership with Richmond Public Schools to prepare highly effective urban teachers who are committed to the students of RPS for the long term.”

NCTR will act as a research and evaluation laboratory identifying, testing and scaling best practices for clinically based preparation.

“Serving as a provider for NCTR will ensure that RTR remains on the cutting edge of urban teacher preparation,” Dozier said.