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Three Years In: Insights on Sustainable, High-quality Teacher Apprenticeship Programs
Category: Lessons from the Field
On the Ground with RTAPs is a monthly newsletter published on LinkedIn, highlighting best practices and insights on building, launching, and sustaining Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Programs.
Three years ago, Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Programs (RTAPs) launched from idea to reality, sparked by national momentum and a growing commitment by states to reimagining how we recruit, prepare, and retain educators.
Today, we’re encouraged to see apprenticeship pathways expanding into nearly every corner of the country as a promising solution to strengthening local pipelines of future teachers.
At DFI, we believe that multiple pathways into teaching are needed to attract, prepare, and retain a highly effective educator workforce, and that every pathway must: (1) focus on equipping aspiring teachers with the knowledge and skills to enact effective, evidence-based instruction, (2) incorporate early and integrated practice experiences throughout an aspiring teacher's preparation, and (3) be accessible and affordable to all who wish to pursue teaching. Ultimately, how these programs are designed matters more than how quickly they’re growing.
An Uneven Landscape
In 2022, only two states had established registered teacher apprenticeship programs. Today, 48 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have approval to offer RTAPs.
From supporting the first federally-registered RTAP at Austin Peay State University College of Education, to launching an RTAP collaborative of over 80 educator-preparation programs nationwide, we’ve seen firsthand what’s possible when preparation programs, school districts, and state agencies work together.
But we're also noting something else: the landscape is incredibly uneven.
No two states approach RTAPs exactly the same way. Some states are forging ahead with strategic investments and clear visions, like Utah’s U-RAPT initiative which invests $10,000 per apprentice annually, and Massachusetts’s requirements to ensure apprentices build real instructional skills, not just fill staff shortages. Meanwhile, other states struggle with funding gaps and uneven support—making access to RTAPs, and the quality of those programs, dependent on where an aspiring teacher happens to live.
As strategic advisors to national and state task forces, committees, and boards, we have consistently emphasized that sustainable apprenticeships don’t emerge by accident. They are designed: woven together from intentional partnerships, structured field experiences, and high expectations for teaching practice. RTAPs need to be about more than just an affordable pathway to a credential. They need to be a pathway to long-term classroom success.
A teacher apprentice leading small-group instruction at Cumby ISD in East Texas.
Access and Quality: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Apprenticeships are helping open the doors of the profession to those who might not otherwise have become teachers: people who reflect the resilience, experiences, and immense potential of the communities they serve.
But access without quality is a false promise. And low-quality pipelines ultimately hurt students the most.
When we co-authored the National Guideline Standards (NGS) for Registered Apprenticeships in Teaching with The Pathways Alliance, adopted by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2023, we envisioned a landscape where every RTAP adopted practices that were both responsive to the immediate needs of their communities and also built on a strong foundation: emphasizing early clinical practice, strong mentorship, and a commitment to instructional quality:
While the NGS establishes important minimum standards for what a high-quality teacher apprenticeship program should commit to, their implementation takes time. In our first-of-its-kind report, Fueling the Lone Star Teacher Pipeline: A Landscape Analysis of RTAPs in Texas, we asked leaders of Texas-based RTAPs about their alignment to the NGS. Our research revealed that most programs in Texas were aligning their practices to the NGS but there was still room for improvement in certain areas such as mentor-to-apprentice ratios:
Looking Ahead
RTAPs are not the only solution to teacher shortages, but they have immense potential to be a critical lever, if executed well.
While the future of federal funding is being determined, we believe:
- States play a crucial role in not only ensuring every pathway into teaching is high-quality and accessible but also providing sustainable funding sources to foster sustainable pipelines.
- Federal agencies, like the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Department of Education, have a significant economic responsibility to ensure that Registered Apprenticeships and all pathways into teaching are held to high standards of excellence, so that all future teachers and students are equipped to meaningfully contribute to a highly-skilled workforce.
The future of our country depends on who stands at the front of the classroom, and on how well we prepare them for the work ahead.
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On the Ground with RTAPs is a monthly newsletter published on LinkedIn, highlighting best practices and insights on building, launching, and sustaining Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Programs.