Afton Partners

By preparing high-performing teachers to support their peers, Leading Educators is seeking to disrupt the multibillion-dollar professional development industry — one that research has repeatedly found “ineffective in supporting changes in teachers’ practices and student learning,” according to a study from the Learning Policy Institute… At roughly $880 per teacher, the program costs dramatically less than the $12,598 per teacher that a 2015 TNTP study conservatively estimated that large districts spend on traditional professional development… “I think we’re in a place and time where we as a field have realized we are not going to fire our way to improvement or recruit our way to improvement,” he said. “Of the 3.5 million teachers who are already teaching in the classroom, how are we helping create improvements in skill?”

Just like the years leading up to 2008, the last few years have yielded stronger growth in funds for schooling. And just like in 2008, there are signs of trouble ahead. For districts, a fiscal downturn can trigger the equivalent of a debilitating migraine: Pain comes from every direction and little seems to quell it. While we can’t predict how an economic downturn will affect every district, we can anticipate some big-picture trends, and in doing so potentially tweak the script.  Dr. Marguerite Roza outlines these key trends that could help insulate school systems from needless churn, better equipping them to make it through the inevitable downturn ahead without extinguishing public good will.

Offering a one-time bonus could help keep high-performing teachers in high-needs schools and raise student scores, according to a new study published in Economics of Education Review. Previous research by…a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill’s school of education, and one of this study’s authors, found that the extra money did keep more high-performing teachers in these high-needs schools. This current study found that student performance improved as well: Reading scores at these schools increased by about .1 standard deviation, or between 8 and 11.5 additional weeks of learning, compared to similar schools that didn’t have the bonus program. Math performance improved as well, though the difference was only marginally statistically significant.