Teacher Residencies in California: Enrollment, Preparation, and Outcomes of Residency-Prepared Teachers

Developed in partnership between local education agencies and teacher preparation programs, teacher residencies offer a comprehensive approach meant to improve preparation while addressing shortages in high-need fields. In California—the focus of this study—residents get a full year of classroom experience working alongside a mentor teacher while taking credential coursework and receiving financial support from the partner district. Most California residencies are structured as 1-year postbaccalaureate programs. This preparation model is designed to increase residents’ readiness to teach and their likelihood of staying in the partner district and the profession.

Starting in 2018, California began making significant state investments to subsidize teacher preparation and encourage residency programs. The Teacher Residency Grant Program (TRGP), which allocated more than $740 million between 2018 and 2025, is the primary source of state funding for residency programs. Federal and local sources have also been used to fund California’s residency candidates and encourage the growth of residency programs. The U.S. Department of Education’s Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP) Program awarded more than $140 million to California-based teacher preparation partnerships to support residency programs between 2018 and 2024, though some of these grants were canceled by the federal government in 2025. Philanthropic funds have supported hundreds of candidates in the California State University (CSU) Residency Year Scholarship Program, while some districts have strategically invested their own funds in residency programs outside the context of grants.

Given these many investments in a relatively new model of preparation, it is critical to better understand the landscape of residency programs across California and the experiences and outcomes of residency completers. Notable limitations in data accuracy and coverage make it difficult to reliably track data from residency programs and identify individual residents in state data. However, using data provided by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) and the California Department of Education (CDE), this report leverages data sources that do differentiate residents and residency programs (e.g., annual reporting for accreditation, program completer surveys). Focusing on the 2018–19 to 2024–25 school years, these analyses examine the statewide growth of teacher residency programs and describe preparation experiences as reported by residency completers.

This report also offers some of the first statewide analyses comparing outcomes for California’s residency-prepared teachers to those prepared through other pathways, including their teaching performance assessment passing rates, placement rates in California public school teaching positions, and retention rates for the first 3 years of teaching. To supplement these quantitative findings, we share vignettes from successful California teacher residencies to illustrate how these programs work in practice.

In short, we find that compared to other pathways, California’s residency programs:

• recruit and prepare a more racially and ethnically diverse teacher workforce;
• offer more and better-supported clinical experiences for their candidates;
• are more likely to be rated as very effective by their graduates;
• produce higher passing rates on the California Teaching Performance Assessment (CalTPA);
• support higher entry rates into teaching and place new teachers in schools serving higher proportions of economically disadvantaged students and students of color; and
• show higher retention rates in schools and districts among new teachers.

California’s Residency Enrollment and Program Completer Experiences

Across California, residents represent a small but rapidly growing portion of the teacher pipeline. Between 2018–19 and 2024–25, the number of new residency candidates reported annually more than quadrupled, from just over 400 statewide in 2018–19 to approximately 2,000 in 2024–25, accounting for 10% of all new teaching candidates. The largest absolute growth has occurred among Multiple Subject credential candidates (those preparing for elementary teaching positions), but there has also been substantial growth among Single Subject credential candidates (those preparing for secondary teaching in specific subjects) and Education Specialist candidates (those preparing to be special education teachers). These totals undercount residents statewide because some institutions with known residency programs do not report residents separately from student teachers in their annual reporting.

During this same period, California residencies enrolled a racially and ethnically diverse candidate pool. This aligns with the fact that since 2021–22, TRGP grants could be used to support local efforts to strengthen teacher diversity. More than 70% of new residency candidates reported between 2018–19 and 2024–25 were identified as people of color. Almost half of residency candidates (49%) were identified as Latino/a, compared to 37% of student teaching candidates and 31% of intern candidates.

The number of institutions offering the residency pathway has also grown over time. These residency programs varied considerably in size, with most programs enrolling a small number of candidates (a median of 10 new candidates per program per year), while a handful of programs enrolled much larger numbers. In fact, more than 60% of residency candidates statewide were enrolled in just eight institutions: five in the California State University system (Bakersfield, Fresno, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Northridge) and three private institutions (Alder Graduate School of Education, National University, and Teachers College of San Joaquin).

By ensuring that candidates are in clinical placement for the full school year and forging close partnerships with the partner district and placement schools, the residency model offers more intensive and better-supported clinical experiences than other models. Compared to student teaching programs, residency programs reported that full-time postbaccalaureate candidates participated in substantially more clinical hours despite shorter average program lengths. Similarly, residency completers were more likely than student teachers to report high levels of clinical observation and feedback from program staff.

On statewide surveys of preparation program completers, residents rated their programs highly and reported positive perceptions of their preparedness to teach. Ninety percent of residency completers rated their program as effective or very effective. Residents were slightly more likely than others to report being well prepared or very well prepared for teaching domains aligned with California’s standards for beginning teachers. Multiple Subject and Education Specialist residency completers were also more likely than student teachers and interns to report experiencing in-depth training to teach many aspects of literacy and mathematics. Residents were especially likely to report opportunities to practice what they had been learning in their clinical placements, and 90% of residency completers agreed or strongly agreed that their clinical experiences allowed them to integrate and apply the major ideas developed through their program coursework.

Preparation Outcomes for Residency-Prepared Teachers

This report offers some of the first statewide analyses comparing preparation outcomes for teaching candidates and teachers by their preparation pathway (residency, student teaching, or internship). Because of the limitations of the statewide data sources, these analyses likely underestimate the differences between residents and student teachers, because not all residents can be identified with the available data, and these individuals are grouped with student teachers.

Compared to their peers, residents were more likely to pass the CalTPA, a classroom-based assessment evaluating the teaching skills of candidates using common tasks and criteria. Residents had higher initial passing rates on the CalTPA (75%) compared to student teachers (71%) and interns (70%), primarily driven by differences on the Multiple Subject CalTPA. Black and Latino/a residency candidates also had significantly higher average passing rates than their peers in student teaching and intern programs, and passing rates among residents did not differ significantly by candidate race and ethnicity.

A central goal of residency programs is to support candidates’ successful entry into the classroom and retention in the profession. On average, residency-prepared teachers were more likely to be hired and retained in California public schools than other teacher candidates. Among preservice completers who received their preliminary teaching credential between 2018–19 and 2023–24, 89% of residents were employed as a teacher in a California public school within 1 year of receiving their preliminary credential, compared to 73% of those completing student teaching programs. Residency-prepared new teachers were slightly more likely than those prepared through student teaching to have main teaching assignments in the high-need shortage areas of mathematics, science, and special education, and they taught in schools serving higher average shares of students of color and economically disadvantaged students. Residency-prepared new teachers were also more likely to teach in urban schools and charter schools compared to other new teachers.

Importantly, residency-prepared teachers were more likely than other new teachers to be retained in their school and retained in their district in their first 3 years of teaching. When accounting for teacher and school characteristics, residency-prepared new teachers were an estimated 3 percentage points more likely to remain in their district after the first 3 years than new teachers trained through student teaching, 4 percentage points more likely to remain than interns, and 10 percentage points more likely to remain than new teachers entering on emergency-style permits or who were prepared out of state.

Policy Implications

Based on these findings, the following are important considerations for education leaders in California. These suggestions can improve our understanding of the impact of California’s residency investments and sustain the progress described in this report.

• Consider mechanisms to recognize and incentivize residencies. Given the success of residencies in recruiting, preparing, and retaining teachers, the state could consider recognizing and differentiating residency programs from other preparation types at the state level. This could help bolster programs by clearly communicating residency features to employers and reinforcing their value. Approaches could include recognizing residencies that meet state criteria with a special state designation; creating a residency credential, as done in New Mexico and New York; or assigning a candidate-level designation that indicates to potential employers that the candidate was prepared through a residency pathway, as Texas has done.
   
• Leverage resources and strengthen technical assistance to support the scaling and sustainability of residencies. Although residency programs are growing and have been successful at addressing long-standing shortages, they are not yet the norm. District and state leaders could consider how to support further scaling and increase the sustainability of residencies through continued financial investments and additional technical assistance. Technical assistance centers, such as California’s Statewide Residency Technical Assistance Center (SRTAC) and The Residency Lab, can provide tailored supports to residency programs to improve recruitment, program design, resident and mentor supports, and sustainability.
   
• Improve the collection and use of data on residencies to support analyses and improvement of program outcomes. California’s ability to produce regular analyses of residencies is limited by current features of the state data system. The CTC could clarify the defining features of residency programs and update data collection processes to more accurately identify residency programs and candidates. Candidate-level data that tracks candidates from preparation through induction and beyond would allow for more accurate analyses of resident hiring, retention, and classroom effectiveness. Doing so would support deeper understanding of the impacts of teacher residencies and California’s residency investments, not only on the teacher workforce but also on student achievement.

These considerations may require increased state-level staff, capacity, and resources to maintain, continuously improve, and recognize high-quality residency programs. Given the growing momentum and positive outcomes highlighted in these analyses, continued investments in supporting residencies are crucial to ensure that residencies are not a passing fad.

Teacher Residencies in California: Enrollment, Preparation, and Outcomes of Residency-Prepared Teachers by Susan Kemper Patrick, Tiffany S. Tan, Julie Fitz, and Cathy Yun is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

This research was supported by the Gates Foundation. Core operating support for LPI is provided by the Heising-Simons Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Raikes Foundation, Sandler Foundation, Skyline Foundation, and MacKenzie Scott. We are grateful to them for their generous support. The ideas voiced here are those of the authors and not those of our funders.