Thornburg Foundation · with Prepared to Teach
With teacher vacancies making national headlines, Michael worked closely on the passage of New Mexico House Bill 13, which raised minimum teacher residency stipends to $35,000 and funded stipends for mentors and training-site principals — support that helped the state's residency programs scale to prepare more than 400 teacher residents, about a third of all newly licensed teachers in New Mexico.
He served on the steering committee for the Albuquerque Teacher Residency Partnership (since renamed) alongside Marjori Krebs, Ellen Bernstein, and Karen DeMoss of Prepared to Teach. Thornburg funded an independent evaluation of the partnership by the National Center for Teacher Residencies, which verified its effectiveness at preparing and retaining teachers in New Mexico classrooms.