REPORTS
The national teacher apprenticeship movement has emerged as a strategic response to addressing the deepening teacher workforce shortage crisis facing states. As schools, districts, and states grapple with persistent vacancies, particularly in high-need subjects and under-resourced communities, traditional preparation pathways have proven insufficient to meet the scale and urgency of demand. Financial burdens, lack of access to preparation programs, and inflexible pathways have long been barriers for aspiring educators (NEA, 2025). In response, states have been increasingly adopting teacher apprenticeship programs, which offer a reimagined, earn-and-learn approach. By 2025, 48 states had embraced apprenticeship-based teacher preparation models, signaling growing national momentum around this strategy. At the forefront of this movement is Tennessee’s Grow Your Own Teacher Apprenticeship Program (GYO TAP), which served as the country's first federally registered teacher apprenticeship.
The Pathways Alliance, a national coalition supporting educator preparation pathways, has developed recommendations to help implement the Department of Labor’s anticipated regulatory changes, specifically, their impact on data infrastructure for educator apprenticeships. Our intention with this document is to ensure that as the Department of Labor and other relevant agencies implement the regulatory changes, the data infrastructure and tools necessary to recruit, select, onboard, place, support, improve, and rapidly grow apprenticeships in education are supported to ensure success.
Alongside federal, state, and local workforce and education leaders, the Pathways Alliance has developed comprehensive guidelines for high-quality educator apprenticeship programs based on field data. Published by the U.S. Department of Labor, the guidelines establish the requirements and responsibilities apprenticeship programs must fulfill. In addition, they provide a work process schedule that outlines the professional and pedagogical skills to be attained during their apprenticeship.
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The Pathways Alliance has developed a compendium of four teaching apprenticeship programs that exemplify the principles underpinning the National Guidelines for Apprenticeship Standards for K-12 Teacher Apprenticeships. This review of exemplary programs is intended to support the development of new teaching apprenticeship programs that benefit from increased enrollment and retention of prospective teachers by detailing how successful apprenticeship programs are meeting the mark.
*Updated April 2025
Alongside a collaborative group of education and workforce leaders from school districts, state education agencies, teacher preparation programs, and national advocacy groups, the Pathways Alliance has developed this definition of teacher residencies to help clarify the field's use of the term. This report aims to support local partnership discussions about residency design and provide state, regional, and federal leaders with a condensed yet thorough definition to guide policies that will help high-quality residency programs attract, prepare, and retain a robust and diverse teaching workforce.
The Apprenticeship Model offers the education industry both short term and long term advantages. By allowing individuals to obtain paid work experience, classroom instruction and portable, nationally recognized credentials, Apprenticeship Models result in an immediate improvement in quality of life for prospective educators. Over time, by focusing on the development of core competencies and a diversification of the teacher pool, apprenticeships can build a more sustainable, capable and diverse workforce for the education industry to draw from.
When implementing a national program, any set of standards put in place needs to be strong enough to offer wide spread structure while remaining flexible enough to be customized based on local needs and requirements. The National Guidelines for Apprenticeship Standards for K-12 Teacher Apprenticeships (NGS) strikes a perfect balance and supplies qualified sponsors with a nationally-certified standards template that can be tailored to fit the program's specific objectives. By adhering to these standards, the nation is able to create a benchmark for excellence with clarity on the requirements and responsibilities that each apprenticeships must meet.
Alongside a collaborative group of education and workforce leaders from school districts, state education agencies, teacher preparation programs, and national advocacy groups, the Pathways Alliance has developed this definition of teacher residencies to help clarify the field's use of the term. This report aims to support local partnership discussions about residency design and provide state, regional, and federal leaders with a condensed yet thorough definition to guide policies that will help high-quality residency programs attract, prepare, and retain a robust and diverse teaching workforce.
