NCRED RPP Lab

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Overview

NCRED recently launched an RPP in the greater Houston area to serve as an experimental context for developing RPP models on educator diversity, putting Handbook research into practice. This year, NCRED aims to recruit two RPPs from other regions in the United States to participate in a community of practice. These RPPs must be committed to increasing the presence and retention of Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers in high-need schools. The initial phase (through academic year 2022/23) will be focused on collaborating as a community to ensure a strong RPP initiation process.

Overview

NCRED recently launched an RPP in the greater Houston area to serve as an experimental context for developing RPP models on educator diversity, putting Handbook research into practice. This year, NCRED aims to recruit two RPPs from other regions in the United States to participate in a community of practice. These RPPs must be committed to increasing the presence and retention of Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers in high-need schools. The initial phase (through academic year 2022/23) will be focused on collaborating as a community to ensure a strong RPP initiation process.

Fostering Educator Diversity is our Priority

Unless school and policy leaders are able to effectively recruit, prepare and retain teachers of color and Indigenous teachers (TOCIT), the nation’s rapidly diversifying student population will not fulfill its academic potential, putting students’ and the nation’s future at risk, researchers say. However, there is no simple solution to diversify the teaching profession. What’s needed is a comprehensive, evidence-based approach that addresses the many dimensions of a teacher’s career. The nation will struggle to keep BIPOC teachers unless policymakers and practitioners provide them with better early career support and improve their working conditions. Otherwise, given the troubling turnover trends among BIPOC teachers, any gains in new-teacher ethno-racial diversity will disappear within a few years.

Research-practice partnership is our method

Unique local problems facing teachers can be addressed by forming intentional, strategic and genuine research-practice partnerships with nearby education scholars to study teacher ethno-racial diversity. NCRED seeks to advance these partnerships by supporting practitioners in local education agencies to work closely with researchers, including university-based scholars or researchers working in think tanks, policy intermediaries, state agencies, or nonprofit and community-based organizations. The goal of NCRED’s RPP community is twofold: to make progress on increasing the ethnoracial diversity in local areas, while also building knowledge about how scholars and practitioners can partner around this complex work.

Research-practice partnership is our method

Unique local problems facing teachers can be addressed by forming intentional, strategic and genuine research-practice partnerships with nearby education scholars to study teacher ethno-racial diversity. NCRED seeks to advance these partnerships by supporting practitioners in local education agencies to work closely with researchers, including university-based scholars or researchers working in think tanks, policy intermediaries, state agencies, or nonprofit and community-based organizations. The goal of NCRED’s RPP community is twofold: to make progress on increasing the ethnoracial diversity in local areas, while also building knowledge about how scholars and practitioners can partner around this complex work.