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UTEP Dean Provides Expert Testimony on Teacher Prep to Texas Legislators

UTEP’s Miner Teacher Residency previously recognized as a model for the state

EL PASO, Texas (Apr. 4, 2023) – Clifton Tanabe, Ph.D., dean of the College of Education at The University of Texas at El Paso, provided expert testimony to the Texas House Committee on Public Education in Austin today on the effectiveness of the Miner Teacher Residency, a comprehensive teacher readiness program pioneered at UTEP.

Clifton Tanabe, Ph.D., dean of the College of Education at The University of Texas at El Paso, provided expert testimony to the Texas House Committee on Public Education in Austin today on the effectiveness of the Miner Teacher Residency, a comprehensive teacher readiness program pioneered at UTEP.
Clifton Tanabe, Ph.D., dean of the College of Education at UTEP provided expert testimony to the Texas House Committee on Public Education in Austin on Apr. 4, 2023 on the effectiveness of the Miner Teacher Residency, a comprehensive teacher readiness program pioneered at UTEP. The committee met to consider House Bill 11, which seeks to provide pay raises to teachers and increase funding for classrooms, among other measures.

The committee met to consider House Bill 11, which seeks to provide pay raises to teachers and increase funding for classrooms, among other measures. The bill would establish the Texas Teacher Residency Partnership Program to create a statewide teacher mentor program between schools and educator preparation programs that would provide state-funded stipends for teacher residents.

“Our work is driven by a simple belief,” Tanabe told the committee. “That is that every child in El Paso, regardless of ZIP code, deserves to be taught by the best teachers – teachers who are highly trained and who have developed the skillset necessary to make a difference in the learning outcomes for all the students they teach.” 

The Miner Teacher Residency has been previously recognized as a model teacher mentorship program for the state. The objective of the program is to increase the classroom readiness of new and early-career teachers and to increase their retention in the profession.

The yearlong program includes an intensive coaching structure where UTEP teacher residents, including students in their senior year and recent graduates, are placed in classrooms with mentor teachers employed by partner school districts. The residents also have support from full-time UTEP clinical faculty who are onsite at the schools serving as site coordinators and instructional coaches.

The program continues beyond the residency year by providing weekly coaching for teachers in their first three years of the profession. Since its inception as a pilot of 19 students in 2019, the Miner Teacher Residency has grown to over 185 teacher residents in seven school districts and nearly 40 school campuses in the El Paso region.

About the University of Texas at El Paso

The University of Texas at El Paso is America’s leading Hispanic-serving university. Located at the westernmost tip of Texas, where three states and two countries converge along the Rio Grande, 84% of our 24,000 students are Hispanic, and half are the first in their families to go to college. UTEP offers 169 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs at the only open-access, top-tier research university in America.

 

Last Updated on April 04, 2023 at 12:00 AM | Originally published April 04, 2023

By MC Staff UTEP Marketing and Communications