Growing Teachers from Within: Implementation, Impact, and Cost of an Alternative Teacher Preparation Program in Three Urban School Districts. Research Report. RR-A256-1

TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project), an organization committed to ending educational inequities by promoting the recruitment, training, and retention of high-quality teachers and school leaders, implemented its Teacher Effectiveness and Certification (TEACh) initiative in three urban school districts. Through TEACh, TNTP works with school districts to develop a within-district process to recruit, prepare, and certify teacher candidates, as well as hire and support them in their first year. As part of an evaluation of this initiative, RAND investigated each district program's implementation and costs, the effects of TEACh on the recruitment and retention of teachers, and the relative performance of those teachers. This is the final report for that evaluation. Key findings include: (1) Communication was vital to the implementation of TEACh; (2) The impact of TEACh was clearest in its supply of racially diverse teachers for hard-to-staff district roles; and (3) The cost of TEACh was somewhat higher than that of similar programs, but the costs of various components in different districts varied widely.