Last month, attendees scheduled to present at an upcoming conference on teacher preparation received what some said was a troubling email.
The conference organizers wanted them to sign an agreement ensuring that the content of their presentations complied with current federal regulations and executive orders—and giving the organizers permission to change their presentations if reviewers thought their work didn’t follow these rules, according to a copy of the contract obtained by Education Week.
The agreement, sent to all presenters from organizers of the National Center for Teacher Residencies’ annual symposium this April, didn’t mention diversity, equity, or inclusion by name. But it came on Feb. 19, just days after the U.S. Department of Education circulated a Dear Colleague letter saying that many DEI initiatives violate anti-discrimination law.
For Matthew Militello, a professor of educational leadership at East Carolina University’s College of Education, the request sent a signal: NCTR was willing to “kowtow to executive orders” rather than support its members—many of them educators working for residency programs that aim to make it easier for teachers from underrepresented backgrounds to enter the profession. Some of these programs have already lost federal funding.
Militello pulled out of the symposium rather than sign the agreement, one of at least three presenters to do so.
This one incident affects a relatively small part of the teacher-preparation landscape. But it illustrates the broader ripple effects that the Trump administration’s attempts to root out DEI are having on efforts to diversify the teaching profession—a goal that research suggests would lead to better outcomes for the nation’s students.
“The way things are operating now, people don’t have a lot of clarity around what they can and can’t do,” said Amaya Garcia, the director of pre-K-12 research and practice with the Education Policy program at New America, and an expert on grow-your-own educator programs.
“You don’t want to put yourself in that target,” she said, referring to NCTR. “I can understand why they would be taking this more defensive posturing.”
After a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on Feb. 21 barring enforcement of executive orders targeting DEI programs, NCTR sent a follow-up email to presenters, telling them there was “no need” to sign the agreement. The presenters who rescinded their participation still aren’t planning to attend.
The organization has asked presenters to keep in mind that some attendees may be from states with laws preventing them from attending DEI-focused training, said Kathlene Holmes Campbell, NCTR’s CEO. The symposium was scheduled to take place in Chicago, but has since been moved online so that officials from residencies facing federal funding cuts could still attend without spending on travel, Campbell said.
The federal climate is having a “chilling effect” on the priorities and values education organizations are willing to defend, said another presenter at the NCTR symposium, who asked that he not be named. “We’re seeing it all around the country, what I call an overcorrection from these executive orders.”
Teacher residencies have felt outsize effects from Trump administration cuts
NCTR decided to send the initial request to presenters after working with legal counsel to review potential consequences from recent executive orders, said Campbell.
“We wanted to make sure that we weren’t inadvertently putting anyone at risk of losing their federal funds,” she said.
Teacher residencies make up a small slice of the educator-preparation landscape, but they’ve felt outsized disruption from the Trump administration’s recent actions.
Residency programs allow educator candidates to get hands-on classroom experience while taking coursework toward a teaching certification. Most residencies offer stipends and tuition reduction options, making the programs a viable pathway for career changers, candidates from low-income backgrounds, or anyone else who might struggle to pay for a four-year degree and complete an unpaid student teaching semester. Many programs recruit candidates from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds.
“There’s this misalignment now between the values that these programs have, in terms of who they’re trying to recruit and give access to, and the values this administration has,” said Garcia, from New America.
In February, the Education Department canceled millions of dollars in federal grants that supported teacher residencies through the Teacher Quality Partnership program, claiming that they furthered “divisive ideologies.”
On Tuesday, NCTR and the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education filed a lawsuit challenging the termination of funding through this program, along with the cancellation of grants through two other programs that support educator preparation.
Among the canceled grants was $6.7 million in funding for NCTR, of which the organization had spent all but $1.2 million. “We don’t believe that it was terminated correctly or legally,” Campbell said.
“Over the last year or so, there’s been a lot of misunderstandings around what I would call the definitions of diversity, equity, and inclusion. I think we need to clarify what those terms mean,” she said.
Residencies, Campbell said, are designed to remove financial barriers for aspiring educators to enter the teaching profession, with the goal of building a workforce that’s better prepared to meet the needs of every student. “I don’t think, on a surface level, people would disagree with that,” she said.
Some say their residency work is ‘firmly rooted’ in DEI
Throughout the back-and-forth over symposium presentations, Campbell maintains that NCTR “has never strayed from its mission,” which she described as advocating for residency programs because they break down barriers “for all, especially those from underserved communities.”
But some who were slated to present at the conference felt any attempts to restrict their discussion of DEI would be at odds with their work to expand access to the teaching profession.
In an email to presenters and conference organizers on Feb. 18, Eric Washington, the diverse and culturally responsive manager at the Massachusetts department of education’s Center for Strategic Initiatives, withdrew his and his co-presenter’s planned presentation, citing “limitations placed on speakers regarding the use of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) language in discussions.”
“Our proposal to present on the Massachusetts Aspiring Principal Fellowship is firmly rooted in the values of DEI, aiming to increase representation and support for marginalized educators in leadership roles. It is disheartening to witness these vital discussions being limited at a conference that aims to drive educational reform,” he wrote.
The principal fellowship is a one-year program to develop school leaders “who are committed to championing culturally and linguistically sustaining learning communities, equity-driven leadership, and anti-racist practices,” according to its website.
Washington declined an interview through Jacqueline Reis, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts department of education.
