Just days after Virginia ranked 51st in the nation for math recovery from 2019 to 2024, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that a program that trains future teachers and places them in hard-to-staff schools has lost funding because of Donald Trump’s cuts. The Washington Post previously reported that these cuts also affect the residency program that teaches computer skills to high school students, part of Glenn Youngkin’s so-called “signature efforts” to create laboratory schools across the Commonwealth.

“At a time when federal funding to strengthen public education is needed most, Glenn Youngkin is standing by Donald Trump’s cuts, leaving Virginia’s schools more vulnerable than ever,” DPVA Communications Director Kelsey Carolan said. “Time and time again, Youngkin chooses to put politics over our educators and students, undermining the progress our schools need to recover and thrive.”

Richmond Times-Dispatch: VCU’s teacher residency program loses federal funding

• “VCU’s teacher residency program, called RTR, has lost most of a $9 million federal grant, said Terry Dozier, who created the program in 2011. Since its inception, RTR has produced nearly 400 teachers who have committed to work in schools that struggle to hire educators.”

• [...] “Students currently in the program will be able to graduate this year, but its fate next school year is in question, Dozier said. Though the project receives state and local funding, the federal piece is a significant source of revenue.”

• “The residents’ tuition is paid for, and in exchange, they commit to work in a hard-to-staff school for three years. The program’s first federal grant, awarded in 2010, was for $4 million over five years. In its first year, there were 10 residents who earned graduate degrees to teach.”

• “The problem with most student-teaching programs, Dozier said, is that they begin in the middle of the school year, and the student-teacher never sees how the master-teacher sets expectations at the beginning of the year. Teachers who arrive ill-prepared are less likely to stay, costing the school division money when it has to continually recruit new faculty.”

• “Ultimately, the program became a big success. Some residents stayed at their schools for years longer than they were required. Young students learning from RTR teachers performed better than students at comparable schools whose non-RTR teachers had similar levels of experience.”

• “Part of the RTR program also set to lose funding is the VCU x CodeRVA lab school, in which high school students at the CodeRVA magnet school learn coding and other computer science skills taught by master-teachers and VCU residents, The Washington Post reported.”