Reframing leadership for an evolving landscape

This story was initially published in DFI's report Lead Boldly, Teach Brilliantly.

After years studying teacher education in other states, Victoria Theisen-Homer returned home to Arizona, a state with an education system in urgent need of change. The state has among the highest teacher shortage rates in the country; is near the bottom for cost-per-pupil funding; and has among the lowest standards for teacher certification, creating a cycle of underprepared teachers, high turnover, and poor student learning outcomes.

When Theisen-Homer set out to establish a teacher-preparation program that could defy these issues, colleagues and other leaders actively discouraged her from trying. Few believed things could get better.

“I got comments like, ‘Who would want to be a teacher in the state? They're not going to get paid. How would you fund a program like this? Nobody's going to want to fund it,’” Theisen-Homer shared.

Seeking to challenge these beliefs, Theisen-Homer secured support from two of the state’s largest funders and led a feasibility study, engaging thousands of educators, students, and community members through interviews and surveys. The overall response was clear: communities did want a stronger, more rigorous pathway into teaching, one that would hold higher standards for preparation, connect aspiring teachers with early and integrated field experiences in the communities they would serve, and focus on preparing teachers to fully meet the needs of all students.

With this data in hand, Theisen-Homer angled to shift public perception in Arizona about what was possible. She published a report and subsequent op-ed that challenged the narrative that the state’s education system wasn’t capable of improving, which garnered the attention of state leaders and decision-makers. This early momentum helped pave the way for her to launch the Arizona Teacher Residency (AZTR) in 2022.

Reframing leadership for an evolving landscape

As a new educator-preparation leader, Theisen-Homer joined DFI's Impact Academy fellowship in 2023 to build up her leadership skills and learn from peers across the country. The fellowship connects leaders in teacher preparation with the tools to make instructional quality a priority in their programs and drive real and lasting transformative change. Through structured coaching, cohort-based learning sessions, and peer consultancies, Theisen-Homer received resources to hone her leadership as she grew AZTR, seeking to sustain a high-quality program and increase its regional impact.

While many leadership programs dig into the nuts and bolts of leadership actions, the Impact Academy is focused on reframing the concept of leadership itself. The fellowship helps leaders recognize when the problems they face are adaptive: deep, systemic, and rooted in the beliefs, behaviors, and cultures of the people involved. While technical solutions, like adjusting coursework or tweaking program structures, may provide short-term fixes, truly transformational leadership requires leaders to rethink deeply held assumptions, align stakeholders around a shared vision, and recognize that meaningful change is driven by people, not processes.

This type of leadership is more necessary than ever in today’s education context. Over the last few decades, the landscape of teacher preparation nationally has grown increasingly complex, shaped by a proliferation of different pathways into teaching; contrasting expectations from states, districts, and families; and pervasive challenging narratives about the teaching profession, all of which layer complexity onto attracting and retaining future educators.

Consequently, novice teachers are less effective than their more seasoned colleagues and also more likely to leave the profession, often citing lack of adequate preparation as a key factor. Studies also show that high-poverty and lower-performing students are more likely in the classroom of a novice teacher, compounding opportunity and achievement gaps. The role of preparation has a profound opportunity to improve both teacher retention rates and student learning outcomes. Educator-preparation leaders must be keenly attuned to how preparation experiences fully support beginning teachers to be well-equipped for the range of realities in K-12 schools from day one.

As leaders navigate these circumstances, they must bring a discerning lens towards changes and challenges that can impact the trajectory of student learning experiences and outcomes. To do so, they must empower teacher-educators, aspiring teachers, and community stakeholders to be responsive and adaptive, while anchoring in a north star of instructional excellence for their students. Just as new teachers must learn to navigate complexity while keeping student learning and success at the center, leaders and their teams must model that same discipline of ensuring that preparing high-quality beginning teachers remains central to their work.

For Theisen-Homer, growing and sustaining AZTR required her to lead her team to implement evidence-based practices to continuously improve programmatic design and instruction; meaningfully collaborate with district partners on growing the performance of teacher residents; regularly communicate about the program’s impact to attract prospective residents, partners, and funding sources that help maintain its viability; and proactively engage policymakers to enact high standards for teacher preparation. 

This is difficult, complex, and often isolating work. But with the support and guidance of her Impact Academy peers and DFI staff, Theisen-Homer persisted and learned to conduct deep self-reflection about her own leadership and continuously refine a responsive plan of action that enabled her to rally a broad range of stakeholders around positive outcomes for all students.

“I had learned about adaptive leadership but never actually had to apply it until the fellowship,” Theisen-Homer reflected. One of her most powerful takeaways was “having to be ‘both on the balcony and in the mix,’ where you have to look at the problem through a bird's eye view, but also be present with everybody problem-solving. I can get stuck in one or the other, so I found it really valuable to be thinking about problems of practice really intentionally and thoughtfully from multiple lenses.”

Today, AZTR is steadily growing. One-hundred percent of residents teach in Title 1 schools, and 95 percent of its first cohort, now wrapping up their third year of teaching, have stayed in the classroom. Recently, AZTR was selected by the state as the only educator-preparation program – in addition to two local education agencies – to pilot Registered Apprenticeships for teaching, a promising solution adopted by the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education to address educator workforce challenges. In doing so, AZTR’s experiences and results will inform statewide standards to sustain and scale quality teacher pathways. 

Through the Impact Academy fellowship, Theisen-Homer and nearly 200 EPP leaders are taking bold, informed steps towards strengthening pathways into teaching, both in their unique contexts and towards a shared vision to ensure all students across the country access well-prepared teachers.

Learn More

DFI has supported a community of nearly 200 leaders through our Impact Academy fellowship and Leadership Collaborative alumni network to transform teaching and learning in their communities and in collective efforts. To get involved, apply to be a 2026-27 Impact Academy fellow or get in touch to learn more: