ED Announces $35M Competition to Boost Teacher Pipeline, Increase Diversity and Equity

• By Kristal Kuykendall
• 02/25/22

The U.S. Department of Education today announced it will award $35 million in competitive grants through the Teacher Quality Partnership program, intended to expand the pool of well-prepared new teachers, promote diversity in the educator workforce, and bring a wide range of experiences into the classroom to support students.

The TCP program will award 25 to 30 grants of approximately $1 million to $2 million each for the first year of the five-year program, the department said. Funding for the second through fifth years is subject to the availability of funds and the approval of continuation awards.

Eligible applicants are partnerships that must include a high-need local educational agency, a high-need school served by the LEA, or a high-need early childhood education program; a partner institution; a school, department, or program of education within such partner institution; and a school or department of arts and sciences within such partner institution, according to the ED website. Eligible partnerships must implement either teacher preparation programs at the pre-baccalaureate or “fifth-year” level, or teacher residency programs for individuals who are recent graduates with strong academic backgrounds or are mid-career professionals from outside the field of education.

Applications and details of the grant program were posted today at the TCP page on the ED website; applicants are “strongly encouraged” to submit a notice of intent to apply by March 28, 2022. Deadline to submit applications and the required supplemental documentation is April 26, 2022.

The TCP program lists four competitive preference priorities for applicants:

• Priority 1: Projects must be designed to address identified teacher shortage areas and developed and implemented in partnership with historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, tribally controlled colleges and universities, and other minority-serving institutions, in order to diversify the teacher pipeline.
• Priority 2: Projects that propose to support a diverse educator workforce that is prepared with the necessary certification and credentialing to teach in shortage areas, while recognizing the teachers' needs in the high-need schools to be served by the proposed project.
• Priorities 3 and 4: Projects that propose to meet students’ social, emotional, and academic needs and support projects that propose to promote equity in student access to educational resources and opportunities. These competitive preference priorities recognize the social, emotional, and academic needs of teacher candidates, as well as the importance of preparing those teachers to create inclusive, supportive, equitable, unbiased, and identity-safe learning environments for their students.

Assistance for applicants, FAQs and webinars on completing the application documents is available at the TCP website.