Doing Better for Black Educators: How Torace Supports 6 Policy Recommendations

Using Torace

By Team Torace published on May 12, 2023

min read

A Black woman teacher working with pre-school students at a table using manipulatives.

The National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing, launching, supporting, and accelerating the impact of teacher residency programs. The Black Educator Initiative (BEI) was launched by NCTR in 2019 with the goal to recruit, develop, and retain 750 new Black educators through teacher residency programs. The following 6 policy recommendations come from the learnings of the BEI residency programs (download the complete document, Doing Better for Black Educators: Six Policy Recommendations for Improving the Recruitment and Preparation of Black Educators). The goal of the recommendations is, “to help teacher preparation programs, school districts, and states use what BEI grantees are learning to improve the recruitment, preparation, and support of Black educators across the country.”

Torace can support each of the 6 policy recommendations and can help programs strengthen their work with Black educators.

Make teacher preparation financially accessible.
- Torace is free for educators and using Torace saves institutions time and resources so that they can be redeployed more effectively.
Prioritize recruitment strategies that focus on Black educators.
- Torace brings together recruits’ needs and districts’ needs to better match teacher residents to districts and learning experiences that they want.
Ensure that teacher preparation programs are culturally and linguistically sustaining for Black educators.
- Torace supports informed and intentional mentor matching, so the resident learning experience is aligned to what they want and need.
Employ affinity groups as a standard component of the teacher education experience.
- Torace makes it easy to gather information about desired affinity groups and match educators based on what they want.
Invest in and support mentors who can cultivate prospective Black educators.
- Torace helps grow a diverse, expert mentor pool through easy-to-use invitation, approval, and program management functionality.
Include voices of Black educators in the development of teacher education policy.
- Torace gathers information about participant experiences, strengths, and areas of growth to better inform programmatic and policy changes.

To learn more about Torace, schedule a quick demo.

Rowland, C., Martin Goggins, K., Williams Eubanks, A. & Simpson Zulfiqar, A. (2023, February). Doing Better for Black Educators: Six Policy Recommendations for Improving the Recruitment and Preparation of Black Educators. National Center for Teacher Residencies.