In an effort to raise awareness of promising solutions to the ongoing teacher shortage, the national nonprofit organization Deans for Impact (DFI), a Houston Endowment grantee, is touring apprenticeship programs in Texas. A series of site visits aims to highlight exemplary components of Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Programs (RTAPs) that can be scaled and replicated to address critical challenges in teacher effectiveness, diversity, and retention.
At Hutto ISD, the fastest-growing school district in Central Texas and the first site visit in DFI’s tour, schools chief Dr. Cara Malone said she tapped into existing partnerships to launch the district’s teacher apprenticeship program last year. In conceptualizing the program, she also considered some of the recurring themes that had come up in conversation with people who had decided to leave the teaching profession.
“In the world of human resources, anybody who leaves a teaching position ends up in my office in a conversation. And a part of this apprenticeship comes from conversation after conversation with someone who has come into the field, expected it to be a certain way, and then is disappointed by that, so much so that that person walks away,” she said. “We have to do things differently. We can’t keep doing things the way we’re doing them and expect to keep people in the field.”
Hutto ISD, which is about 35 miles northeast of Austin, now has 66 teacher apprentices on four different ramps. About half of the apprentices are Hispanic, representing the communities served by Hutto ISD schools.
“Our apprentices … see themselves as future teachers. They’re more involved,” she said. “They’re building relationships with kids, and they really have become a true valued part of the culture of the school.”
Texas is experiencing one of the most severe teacher certification crises in the country, with 52 percent of new teachers entering the classroom this 2024-25 school year uncertified. At the same time, teacher attrition rates soared to a historic high of 13.4 percent in 2022-23. The consequences on student learning are far-reaching, with research showing a learning loss of about four months in reading and three months in math when taught by an uncertified teacher.
“As a teacher, it’s incredibly important to us that we retain our teachers once they become teachers. And part of that is making sure that they have the appropriate experiences as they progress through the program,” Dr. Malone said. “A prepared teacher is one who can maneuver all the thousands of things that happen, make decisions, and still feel good about him or herself at the end of the day, and good enough to come back the next day and help kids in new ways.”
RTAPs offer a structured, affordable, and hands-on pathway to teaching by embedding aspiring teachers, or “teacher apprentices,” directly into school settings. These programs give aspiring teachers more opportunities to practice, with experiences that increase in complexity and are intentionally woven throughout their tenure as apprentices.
Across the U.S., teacher apprenticeship programs have experienced exponential growth, from two programs in 2022 to 47 in 2024. To establish quality measures and best practices, DFI co-authored the National Guidelines for Apprenticeship Standards for K-12 Teacher Apprenticeships, approved by the U.S. Department of Labor.
“These programs have the potential to address urgent educator workforce needs, while reducing barriers to teacher certification,” said Patrick Steck, Vice President of External Affairs at DFI. “Our learning tour will bring the best of emerging Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Programs to light, enabling more local, state, and national leaders to learn and adopt impactful strategies for more accessible, practice-based, and instructionally-focused pathways at scale.”
Future program visits will feature classroom observations, interviews with teacher apprentices and mentors (“journeymakers”), and deep dives into funding, design, and community engagement with local leaders. In addition to the learning tour, DFI is conducting a landscape analysis of RTAPs in Texas that includes key findings on the 15+ programs currently being designed, built, or implemented throughout the state.