Partnerships to Improve Educator Preparation and Development
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Partnerships to Improve Educator Preparation and Development

SEED Partnerships
Oct 18, 2017

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement is providing an opportunity to receive support for your educator preparation and development initiatives. Agencies and organizations implementing innovative strategies to improve educator preparation and development will receive a thought partner to support their efforts. The thought partners—national nonprofits that received U.S. Department of Education Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) grants—will provide feedback and guidance to support your initiatives.

The support is available to state education agencies, school districts, educator preparation programs, and other organizations that are planning or implementing innovative approaches to teacher and principal preparation or development. The SEED grantees will provide support that is grounded in their experience implementing evidence-based solutions to support teachers and principals in schools and districts across the country.

We are excited to announce a new round of SEED Partnerships. Two organizations will be selected for this round of partnerships. If you are interested, complete this short form. Send any questions you have about the partnerships to Steven Malick at smalick@mathematica-mpr.com.

Additional Information About the SEED Partnerships:

Benefits of Participating in the Partnerships

  • Individualized support to tackle a specific innovation related to educator preparation and development initiatives.
  • Guidance and advice on best practices for implementing innovative strategies for preparing and developing educators.
  • Insight from an ongoing thought partner with first-hand experience designing and implementing evidence-based teacher and principal preparation and development initiatives.

Topics That the Mentoring Can Address

The SEED Partnerships can focus on any of these topic areas:

  • Expanding the teacher pipeline for hard-to-staff schools and subjects
  • Increasing the diversity of the teacher workforce
  • Strengthening principal support, preparation, and development
  • Establishing new leadership pathways for teachers and principals
  • Using feedback and coaching to improve teachers’ classroom instruction
  • Preparing teachers to implement college- and career-ready standards
Participating SEED Grantees

The SEED grantees have extensive experience implementing educator preparation and professional development initiatives. The SEED grantees available for the first year of the mentoring partnerships are:

Partnership Activities
  • Attend the kickoff meeting. Meet with your partnering SEED grantee to set out the goals and plan for your partnership.
  • Participate in monthly partnership sessions. Receive feedback and guidance on your educator preparation or development initiative during monthly calls (about 90 minutes each) with the partnering SEED grantee. A facilitator will lead these sessions to accomplish the partnership’s goals.
First Round of SEED Partnerships:
Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) and the National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR)
Partnership Topic: Increasing the diversity of the teacher workforce.
Description: As the nation’s sole accreditor of educator preparation providers, CAEP recognizes the importance of preparing a diverse pool of effective educators. Preparation providers seeking CAEP accreditation must describe their plans for recruiting a diverse set of strong candidates. As a result, CAEP plays a key role in motivating preparation providers to diversify the teacher workforce and guiding their plans for increasing diversity. NCTR is partnering with CAEP to help advance teacher diversity by improving the quality of educator preparation providers’ recruitment plans. The partnership will focus on (1) the required contents of the recruitment plans, (2) the criteria for reviewing those plans, and (3) the resources available to support preparation providers in developing, implementing, and monitoring effective recruitment plans.
School District of Lee County and the New Teacher Center
Partnership Topic: Using feedback and coaching to improve teachers’ classroom instruction
Description: Lee County faces a well-known challenge—retaining teachers in its highest poverty schools. Although the district provides new teachers with a mentor and support from a teacher leader, a recent exit survey revealed that teachers leaving high-need schools did not feel adequately supported. As a result, the district is seeking to strengthen the quality of its induction program for new teachers and the supports provided to these teachers. The New Teacher Center is partnering with Lee County to help the district better prepare and support its mentors and to use data submitted by mentors to better track and support their work.
Rhode Island and the National Institute for School Leadership
Partnership Topic: Strengthening principal preparation and development
Description: The National Institute for School Leadership is partnering with Rhode Island to support its efforts to improve principal preparation. Rhode Island is seeking to redesign its principal preparation programs so their curricula are more aligned with the roles that principals play in their schools. Additionally, Rhode Island is seeking to define the competencies needed to be a successful principal in today’s school. The partnership will support the state’s efforts to improve principal preparation, with an initial focus on defining the proficiencies that principals need to be successful in their schools.
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