In response to the challenges facing novice teachers (50 percent of new teachers left within five years or less), a new program was founded by Ellen Moir, then Director of Teacher Education at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), in collaboration with Wendy Baron, Supervisor of Teacher Education at UCSC, and supported by the Chair of the UCSC Teacher Education Program, Eugene Garcia.

The Santa Cruz New Teacher Project’s four-year pilot saw 37 induction programs serve more than 3,000 beginning teachers who were mentored by 2,200 experienced teachers in a cross section of urban, suburban, and rural school districts. An evaluation study showed improvement in both teacher practice and retention.

With major support from the Walter S. Johnson and Noyce Foundations, the Santa Cruz New Teacher Project became the New Teacher Center, based at the University of California Santa Cruz. NTC began a quick expansion beyond the greater California Bay Area to bring induction and mentoring services to a broader portfolio of schools.

A group of 175 thought leaders, policymakers, funders, researchers, and educators came together at UCSC for the first annual Symposium. The event, which focused on supporting new teachers and the role of mentorship, was the first of its kind. Over 22 additional Symposiums have taken place to date, serving more than 15,000 changemakers and educators from all 50 states and multiple countries.

The Goldman Sachs Foundation enabled the NTC teacher induction model, considered the “gold standard” for mentor-based induction programs, to be replicated in rural and urban districts in other states. The national pilot opened up partnerships with districts in Dorchester, MD, New York City, and Charlotte, NC, and outreach and dissemination statewide in Wisconsin.

In collaboration with the National Science Teaching Association and Montana State University, the National Science Foundation awarded NTC a five-year, $7.5 million grant. The initiative supported virtual mentoring networks to provide support to beginning science teachers in middle school and high school.

The Carnegie Foundation and NTC partnered in the Teachers for a New Era program to revitalize and shift teacher pre-service programs across the country. The project provided support for new teachers that extended from college preparation through the first two years in the classroom.

Building on initial programs to support new administrators, NTC piloted a new training program to support principals as instructional leaders. It enabled the development of action plans for site-level instructional leadership by providing principals and school leaders intensive, contextualized support from a coach or mentor.

CPS, the nation’s third largest school district, launched a human capital management strategy with NTC to take on the deep challenge of improving beginning teacher retention. The 15-year partnership continues today, focusing on sustainable models for coaching, school leadership, and curriculum implementation.

Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. selected NTC to be one of two providers of teacher induction program models for the first U.S. Department of Education evaluation of mentor-based induction. The program brought mentor training and beginning teacher seminars to eight large urban school districts over a two-year period.

Harvard Education Press published New Teacher Mentoring: Hopes and Promise for Improving Teacher Effectiveness, laying out our principles of high-quality instructional mentoring and providing case studies for a variety of applications and situations in school districts.

In partnership with the Joyce Foundation, NTC created comprehensive summaries of induction policies for all 50 states. The review elevated 10 key state policy criteria for comprehensive, high-quality induction that accelerates new teacher effectiveness and improves teacher retention at the state level.

The culmination of a three-year project, the MET Project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was a collaboration between NTC, dozens of independent research teams, and nearly 3,000 teacher volunteers from seven U.S. public school districts. The findings provided measures for identifying great teaching as a means for educators to improve their practice and serve as the basis for more targeted professional development.

Funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Starting Smart and Strong Initiative began in three communities across the Bay Area as well as Alum Rock in East San Jose. NTC’s first efforts to promote and sustain high-quality early learning programs revealed a deep need for professional development infrastructure and support for preschool and transitional kindergarten teachers.

A five-year federal study revealed that students of NTC-supported teachers gained up to five months of additional learning in reading and math. Evaluation partner SRI International shared how the NTC model supports educators in delivering high-quality instruction focused on student needs with big results.

Under the leadership of CEO Desmond Blackburn, NTC wrote a new mission statement: “to disrupt the predictability of educational inequities for systemically underserved students by accelerating educator effectiveness.” The executive team was reformed to comprise entirely people of color, with decades of experience in the work of educational equity and justice.

NTC received a five-year, $7.9 million Education Innovation and Research grant to implement our whole-school professional learning model with three sites across the U.S. Through SEL-anchored instructional support for coaches, teachers, and school leaders, the data-driven approach opens up new pathways to steer instruction practices, improve learning, transform school culture, and retain teachers by meeting systemically underserved students’ needs.

To ensure NTC truly supports underserved students, we launched a national Education Equity Commission (EEC). The EEC shined a spotlight on the roots of systemic problems, and pushed on NTC’s services and strategies to unlock opportunities for underserved students. Members included field leaders in equity, systems leadership, blended learning, mindset/behavior change, trauma-informed practices, and a student advisory group.

NTC’s point-of-view, guided and informed by our Equity Commission, puts forth commonsense ideas we can all get behind rooted in the science of learning and development. Our three essential understandings (“anchors”) offer multiple points of entry for us all to champion as we work to realize transformative, thriving learning experiences for young people and those who support them.