What if there were a way to make every first-year teacher as effective as one in their second or third year? To make filling vacancies easier, and to keep teachers in the classroom longer? It would be hard to pass up, right?
Yet a scan of the largest school districts in each state shows many are missing an opportunity to strengthen their incoming teacher workforce through better clinical practice (i.e., student teaching) experiences and using those experiences to inform future hiring.
To be sure, this work is not the responsibility of districts alone—it takes partnership between school districts and teacher prep programs, with support (if not overt pressure) from their states. The work is not easy, though there are some straightforward places to begin. Research increasingly suggests that the "pain" of getting started is worth the "gain" of benefits to both students and school systems as a whole.
In this District Trendline, we analyze the clinical practice policies set forth in district contracts, on district websites, and in publicly available student teaching materials in 51 districts: the largest district in each state plus the District of Columbia.1077 We compare these policies against NCTQ's Clinical Practice Framework to identify examples of districts that are setting strategic clinical practice policies and to surface opportunities for districts to do more.
These focus areas are not merely aspirational. Many have already transformed their approach to clinical practice. Read more about their work, and their advice for others, in NCTQ's new Clinical Practice Action Guide.
Nearly half of the districts in our sample (24 districts) set criteria for who can be a cooperating teacher, which is promising given the strength of research in this area and the lack of criteria set by prep programs.
Based on available information, only three districts offer monetary incentives for cooperating teachers: Montgomery County Public Schools (MD) offers $50 per week; New York City Department of Education's Teacher Development Facilitators earn $3,000 per semester that they host a student teacher,1082 and Denver Public Schools' pre-service mentor teachers who work in Title I schools earn $750 per semester.1083 Several other districts state that the cooperating teacher can receive a stipend or honorarium from the teacher prep program that invites them to host a student teacher. On the other hand, one district, Columbus City Schools (OH), explicitly does not allow additional compensation due to the state's ethics laws.
Districts can also support cooperating teachers by offering non-monetary incentives such as "release time," additional time to accommodate their additional responsibilities, or provide them with other benefits such as access to professional learning or continuing education credits, which sometimes can count toward a pay raise. In total, six districts in the sample offer some kind of non-monetary incentive:
Only eight districts in our sample offer monetary incentives, and often only for certain pathways or programs.
Our analysis was not able to identify instances of districts offering training for their cooperating teachers. However, another way that districts can support cooperating teachers' development is through evaluation and feedback. With one possible exception, none of the districts appear to have policies in place to evaluate cooperating teachers on their mentoring ability, such as requiring principals to evaluate cooperating teachers or inviting student teachers or their prep programs to provide feedback.
Chicago Public Schools provides a Teacher Leader Framework that includes a section on cooperating teachers, and it has a system in place to identify when cooperating teachers in the residency program are having challenges and provide those teachers with additional coaching or other support.
Districts may (reasonably) believe that offering this training is the role of the preparation program, since the cooperating teachers are providing a service to the prep program and its candidates. Ensuring that programs are offering this training may be a point to address when establishing partnership agreements with prep programs, since everyone benefits when cooperating teachers have sufficient guidance.
Our analysis found that in 15 districts, the central office coordinates with prep programs to establish placements or requires a memorandum of understanding or other formal engagement with the district's central office (a smart approach, because this allows the district to monitor the quality of placements and to steer student teachers toward the schools that will be hiring or that offer more positive climates). However, in only one district, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, does the central office set into policy that it identifies available cooperating teachers and provide that list to prep programs—despite evidence from a Tennessee research project that this can be an effective strategy for ensuring that the most qualified teachers are chosen to host a student teacher.
Districts are also missing out on some easy record-keeping steps that could speed up future placement processes. Only Greenville County Schools and Laramie County School District (WY) set into policy that they keep records of student teacher placements, which can offer helpful information to both identify sites for future placements and to make it easier for districts to recruit and hire student teachers into new positions.
Despite the benefits of strategically placing student teachers in schools, few districts have written policies establishing placement criteria. Seven districts set criteria for which schools can host a student teacher; none appear to consider which schools will be hiring in the coming year or school ratings. Criteria that are considered include:
Three districts set criteria for activities conducted during clinical practice. For example, New York City Department of Education requires its teaching fellows and teaching collaborative teachers to attend skill-building sessions and to address common core and state teaching standards. Detroit Public Schools Community District's On the Rise Grow Your Own program requires fellows to spend half their day during pre-service institute delivering instruction in the classroom and the remainder of the day engaging in skill-building sessions focused on culturally responsive pedagogy; management, culture, and climate; and rigorous content design and delivery.
Five districts set criteria for how long student teaching has to last, ranging from six weeks of intensive summer training for an alt-route program in Detroit Public Schools Community District to five months for an alt-route program in New York City. It's worth noting that while yearlong residencies have gained popularity, longer student teaching placements are associated with greater teacher retention but not necessarily greater teacher effectiveness.
One way to gather early insights into student teachers' quality is to observe them or require that prep programs share their evaluation ratings with districts. Ten districts set criteria for evaluating student teachers, although these criteria are often limited in scope, such as requiring that the cooperating teacher evaluate the student teacher using the observation rubric provided by the teacher prep institution.
Notably, Portland Public Schools (OR) requires that, in addition to cooperating teachers' evaluations (which are provided to the institution), principals must also observe student teachers using the district's own assessment form and provide that information back to the district. This observation can be an immensely useful tool to help the district identify student teachers to whom they want to extend early job offers.
For districts struggling to staff their classrooms, these experiences can also reduce vacancies and increase teacher retention.
If implementing all six focus areas at once seems too daunting (it's a lot!), districts can use NCTQ's new Clinical Practice Action Guide to get started. In the guide, you'll find a self-assessment tool to help identify what's already working well in your district and which areas need the most attention.
You'll also read about how four school districts, Spokane Public Schools (WA), Beaumont Independent School District (TX), Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (NC), and Chicago Public Schools (IL), are strengthening their own clinical experiences and seeing some big wins as a result. (Note that because this District Trendline only examines the largest district in each state, not all districts featured in the action guide are also included in this blog post.)
Want to learn more or share the great work around clinical practice happening in your district? Check out the action guide or email hputman@nctq.org to talk more!
Yet a scan of the largest school districts in each state shows many are missing an opportunity to strengthen their incoming teacher workforce through better clinical practice (i.e., student teaching) experiences and using those experiences to inform future hiring.
To be sure, this work is not the responsibility of districts alone—it takes partnership between school districts and teacher prep programs, with support (if not overt pressure) from their states. The work is not easy, though there are some straightforward places to begin. Research increasingly suggests that the "pain" of getting started is worth the "gain" of benefits to both students and school systems as a whole.
In this District Trendline, we analyze the clinical practice policies set forth in district contracts, on district websites, and in publicly available student teaching materials in 51 districts: the largest district in each state plus the District of Columbia.1077 We compare these policies against NCTQ's Clinical Practice Framework to identify examples of districts that are setting strategic clinical practice policies and to surface opportunities for districts to do more.
About the Clinical Practice Framework
NCTQ developed a Clinical Practice Framework that details the six focus areas of clinical practice backed by research and supported by the field as the most important to build a quality clinical practice experience. It further identifies the actions that districts, prep programs, and states can take in each area.These focus areas are not merely aspirational. Many have already transformed their approach to clinical practice. Read more about their work, and their advice for others, in NCTQ's new Clinical Practice Action Guide.
1. Strong district–prep program partnerships
Providing aspiring teachers with a strong clinical experience requires that prep programs and districts collaborate, often with support from their state.1078- Four districts, Albuquerque Public Schools (NM), Chicago Public Schools (IL), Detroit Public Schools Community District (MI), and Houston Independent School District (TX), require candidates to complete coursework. However, these requirements are often specific to a pathway, so not all candidates share the same requirements.
- Three districts, Detroit Public Schools Community District, New York City Department of Education (NY), and Wake County School District (NC), set a requirement related to passing a licensure test (though often the state or prep program mandates that candidates pass licensure tests before student teaching).1079 In North Carolina, candidates for the residency pathway must either have sufficient credit hours or pass a content licensure test. New York City requires demonstrating content knowledge via a licensure test for two of its alt-route programs. Seattle Public Schools (WA) also requires evidence of content knowledge, though the policy is not clear on what evidence it requires.
- Other districts set more general criteria such as requiring that candidates are in "good academic standing."
2. Student teacher–cooperating teacher matches
Learning from a strong mentor teacher matters much more than any other aspect of a new teacher's student teaching experience and can help new teachers be as effective as second- or third-year teachers.1080 Districts can identify and recruit strong cooperating teachers, as well as make clinical practice more financially feasible for both student teachers and cooperating teachers.
Figure 1.
Nearly half of the districts in our sample (24 districts) set criteria for who can be a cooperating teacher, which is promising given the strength of research in this area and the lack of criteria set by prep programs.
- Most commonly, districts set requirements for the years of experience a cooperating teacher must have (20 districts).
- Only nine districts require cooperating teachers to have a certain evaluation rating. One of those, Denver Public Schools (CO), also requires that cooperating teachers have evidence of improving student outcomes. Another, New York City Department of Education, only considers evaluation ratings for one of its alt-route programs.
- Expecting or providing training in mentoring, or expecting past experience supervising adults, is more rare. Three districts, Milwaukee Public Schools (WI), Miami-Dade County Public Schools (FL),1081 and Denver Public Schools (CO), have policies related to cooperating teacher training. Albuquerque Public Schools, considers "supervisory ability." New York City gives preference to teachers with experience in teacher leadership roles (including as mentors) for its teaching fellows program.
- Seven districts require principals' recommendations.
Figure 2.
Based on available information, only three districts offer monetary incentives for cooperating teachers: Montgomery County Public Schools (MD) offers $50 per week; New York City Department of Education's Teacher Development Facilitators earn $3,000 per semester that they host a student teacher,1082 and Denver Public Schools' pre-service mentor teachers who work in Title I schools earn $750 per semester.1083 Several other districts state that the cooperating teacher can receive a stipend or honorarium from the teacher prep program that invites them to host a student teacher. On the other hand, one district, Columbus City Schools (OH), explicitly does not allow additional compensation due to the state's ethics laws.
Districts can also support cooperating teachers by offering non-monetary incentives such as "release time," additional time to accommodate their additional responsibilities, or provide them with other benefits such as access to professional learning or continuing education credits, which sometimes can count toward a pay raise. In total, six districts in the sample offer some kind of non-monetary incentive:
- Two districts, Boston Public Schools (MA) and New York City Department of Education (for one of its alt-route pathways), offer release time.
- Two other districts, Red Clay Consolidated (DE) and Columbus City Schools, offer continuing education credits, and Portland Public Schools (ME) offers "salary contact hours" (which are required to advance a teacher's lane on the salary schedule).
- Denver Public Schools considers teachers' mentoring as part of their teacher evaluation.
Making student teaching affordable
Student teaching is often a full-time job, and some districts and prep programs even prohibit student teachers from holding another job while completing their full-time clinical practice. Being unable to work places a financial burden on aspiring teachers and may further limit diversity in the teacher workforce as teachers of color are even more likely to take on student loan debt than white teachers.1084 For this reason, offering student teachers a stipend or other monetary incentive can help make student teaching a more feasible endeavor and can be an important tool in building a more diverse teaching workforce.Figure 3.
Only eight districts in our sample offer monetary incentives, and often only for certain pathways or programs.
- Seven districts offer stipends or a salary to student teachers. Stipends range from $1,000 in Sioux Falls School District (SD) to $10,000 (untaxed) for New York Department of Education's NYC Teaching Collaborative alternative route program. In some cases, district-run residency programs offer even greater incentives. For example, Chicago Public Schools' residents earn a $40,000 salary plus benefits during their year of student teaching.
- Several districts supplement their salaries or stipends with additional financial compensation. For example, Sioux Falls School District is instituting a policy starting in the 2024–25 school year to allow student teachers to work one day a week as a substitute teacher, earning up to $175 per day. Detroit Public Schools Community District's On the Rise Academy, a Grow Your Own program, charges candidates $5,000, but this tuition payment is deferred and may be forgiven entirely if they commit to teach in the district before the completion of the program and spend six years as a teacher in the district; the district also pays fellows an hourly rate during their pre-service experience. New York Department of Education offers its NYC Teaching Fellows a tuition subsidy for fellows receiving a masters degree, worth between $10,500 and $12,000.
- While Seattle Public Schools does not offer a salary or stipend, it does pay tuition costs for candidates in its Grow Your Own pathway.
- On the other hand, three districts, Wichita Public Schools (KS), Newark Public Schools (NJ), and Greenville County Schools (SC), state in board policy that student teachers may not be compensated.
3. Cooperating teachers and program supervisor training
Effectively mentoring adults requires a different set of skills from teaching children. Even experienced and effective teachers may need support on how to observe student teachers and provide them with meaningful feedback.Our analysis was not able to identify instances of districts offering training for their cooperating teachers. However, another way that districts can support cooperating teachers' development is through evaluation and feedback. With one possible exception, none of the districts appear to have policies in place to evaluate cooperating teachers on their mentoring ability, such as requiring principals to evaluate cooperating teachers or inviting student teachers or their prep programs to provide feedback.
Chicago Public Schools provides a Teacher Leader Framework that includes a section on cooperating teachers, and it has a system in place to identify when cooperating teachers in the residency program are having challenges and provide those teachers with additional coaching or other support.
Districts may (reasonably) believe that offering this training is the role of the preparation program, since the cooperating teachers are providing a service to the prep program and its candidates. Ensuring that programs are offering this training may be a point to address when establishing partnership agreements with prep programs, since everyone benefits when cooperating teachers have sufficient guidance.
4. Student teacher placement sites
Almost as important as picking who to pair a student teacher with is selecting where to place a student teacher. Districts that host student teachers are less likely to report vacancies in the coming year (even when compared with other similar districts).1085 When the characteristics of a student teacher's clinical practice classroom aligns with their first teaching job (considering factors like students' socioeconomic status),1086 or when they are hired into the schools in which they did their student teaching,1087 novice teachers are more effective.Our analysis found that in 15 districts, the central office coordinates with prep programs to establish placements or requires a memorandum of understanding or other formal engagement with the district's central office (a smart approach, because this allows the district to monitor the quality of placements and to steer student teachers toward the schools that will be hiring or that offer more positive climates). However, in only one district, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, does the central office set into policy that it identifies available cooperating teachers and provide that list to prep programs—despite evidence from a Tennessee research project that this can be an effective strategy for ensuring that the most qualified teachers are chosen to host a student teacher.
Districts are also missing out on some easy record-keeping steps that could speed up future placement processes. Only Greenville County Schools and Laramie County School District (WY) set into policy that they keep records of student teacher placements, which can offer helpful information to both identify sites for future placements and to make it easier for districts to recruit and hire student teachers into new positions.
Despite the benefits of strategically placing student teachers in schools, few districts have written policies establishing placement criteria. Seven districts set criteria for which schools can host a student teacher; none appear to consider which schools will be hiring in the coming year or school ratings. Criteria that are considered include:
- Principals' or school leaders' interest in hosting, in Los Angeles Unified School District (CA) and Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
- Whether the placement would equitably distribute student teachers across the city, in Chicago Public Schools, which prioritizes placements in underserved regions, Seattle Public Schools, and Newark Public Schools.
- Whether the school has a welcoming environment and supports student teachers' learning, in the School District of Philadelphia (PA).
- Also, one district, Montgomery County Public Schools (MD), requires that institutions use Professional Development Schools to train student teachers (for more about these schools, see NCTQ's Defining Types of Clinical Practice).
5. Student teacher skill development
Teaching is a complex job that requires practitioners to plan carefully for instruction and also to respond to students spontaneously in the moment. Since districts often hire from among the ranks of their student teachers, they have a clear interest in making sure that student teachers have the experiences that will build their skills to make them more effective.Three districts set criteria for activities conducted during clinical practice. For example, New York City Department of Education requires its teaching fellows and teaching collaborative teachers to attend skill-building sessions and to address common core and state teaching standards. Detroit Public Schools Community District's On the Rise Grow Your Own program requires fellows to spend half their day during pre-service institute delivering instruction in the classroom and the remainder of the day engaging in skill-building sessions focused on culturally responsive pedagogy; management, culture, and climate; and rigorous content design and delivery.
Five districts set criteria for how long student teaching has to last, ranging from six weeks of intensive summer training for an alt-route program in Detroit Public Schools Community District to five months for an alt-route program in New York City. It's worth noting that while yearlong residencies have gained popularity, longer student teaching placements are associated with greater teacher retention but not necessarily greater teacher effectiveness.
6. Data and outcomes
Preparing teachers to be ready for the classroom on day one should be a process of continuous improvement. Districts have access to lots of information that can help programs improve their preparation and ensure that districts are getting new teachers with the skills and knowledge they need. Districts can also track data on student teachers to help make better informed hiring decisions and to decide which programs to partner with in future years.One way to gather early insights into student teachers' quality is to observe them or require that prep programs share their evaluation ratings with districts. Ten districts set criteria for evaluating student teachers, although these criteria are often limited in scope, such as requiring that the cooperating teacher evaluate the student teacher using the observation rubric provided by the teacher prep institution.
Notably, Portland Public Schools (OR) requires that, in addition to cooperating teachers' evaluations (which are provided to the institution), principals must also observe student teachers using the district's own assessment form and provide that information back to the district. This observation can be an immensely useful tool to help the district identify student teachers to whom they want to extend early job offers.
Conclusion
Transforming clinical practice can be a win for everyone. New teachers face a steep learning curve, but a strong clinical experience, especially when student teachers are paired with an instructionally effective cooperating teacher, can help a first-year teacher start out a year or two ahead. This is especially important for achieving districts' equity goals, since students of color and students living in poverty are the most likely to be assigned to first-year teachers.For districts struggling to staff their classrooms, these experiences can also reduce vacancies and increase teacher retention.
If implementing all six focus areas at once seems too daunting (it's a lot!), districts can use NCTQ's new Clinical Practice Action Guide to get started. In the guide, you'll find a self-assessment tool to help identify what's already working well in your district and which areas need the most attention.
You'll also read about how four school districts, Spokane Public Schools (WA), Beaumont Independent School District (TX), Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (NC), and Chicago Public Schools (IL), are strengthening their own clinical experiences and seeing some big wins as a result. (Note that because this District Trendline only examines the largest district in each state, not all districts featured in the action guide are also included in this blog post.)
Want to learn more or share the great work around clinical practice happening in your district? Check out the action guide or email hputman@nctq.org to talk more!