Great Teachers and Leaders for All Learners

Feb 05 | Robert M. Stonehill, Ph.D., Managing Researcher, AIR,
When teacher performance is assessed differently, can we ensure equitable access to effective teachers? Pressure is building in the nation’s schools to get teacher evaluation right. States want to ensure that all students, regardless of ZIP code, have access to effective teachers. Leaders are making important decisions about compensation and personnel based on teacher evaluation results. But... Read more »
Dec 02 | Cheryl Pruce, AIR Research Analyst,
Here’s something you already may know: Mathematica Policy Research’s two, large-scale studies on the distribution of effective teachers across schools have made quite a splash in the research and policy worlds. So why yet another blog post on them? Because most of us need help translating meticulous research so we can use it in the field! That’s why I asked some of the authors of Access to... Read more »
Nov 12 | Joel Knudson, Researcher, AIR,
A new case study of California’s Garden Grove Unified School District tells the complicated but important story of a comprehensive approach to improving teaching. The case study, published by the California Collaborative on District Reform, found that the district’s relentless focus on supporting teachers from recruitment through retirement to ensure good outcomes for its diverse students pays... Read more »
Oct 29 | Cheryl Pruce, Jessica Giffin, Ellen Sherratt, and Jane Coggshall, GTL Center Staff,
A small contingent of GTL Center staff attended Education Trust’s 2013 National Conference, “Ordinary People, Extraordinary Results” on October 24–25. Here we share a couple of takeaways related to equitable access to great teachers and leaders. In her opening plenary, Kati Haycock put it starkly: Inequality is growing, and it’s harder to have a better life than your parents did in the United... Read more »
Sep 24 | Renee A. Moore, Mississippi Delta Community College,
During my tenure as our state Teacher of the Year, one of my duties was to help recruit teachers. Because I live in the impoverished Delta region of Mississippi, I took a special interest in encouraging new teachers to come to our area. Unfortunately, the combination of poor working and living conditions in many Delta towns makes attracting and keeping teachers very difficult. This frustrating... Read more »
Sep 10 | Daniel J. Quinn, Teacher, Doctoral Student, and Executive Director of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice
Equitable access to high-quality teachers is an important goal, but how do we ensure that all students in all schools have the same chance at getting those high-quality teachers? Recent Center on Great Teachers and Leaders for all Learners blogs by Jane Coggshall and John Papay offer promising dialogue on staffing issues in high-poverty and hard-to-staff schools Coggshall’s blog references a... Read more »
Aug 22 | David Osher, Ph.D., Vice President, American Institutes for Research
I have studied schools where teachers broke down in class, smoldered as they burned out in the teachers’ lounge, or quit. I also have seen these teachers’ behaviors turn around—along with student behaviors and academics. Examples: A school in the South Bronx, New York, where student behavior and achievement improved, and teachers—instead of leaving—recruited their friends. A school... Read more »
Aug 06 | Jiye Grace Han, consultant at Public Impact and GTL Center team member, and Sharon Kebschull Barrett, senior editor, Public Impact
In late 2011, Denise Watts, a superintendent at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, was looking for help meeting her goals as executive director for the new Project L.I.F.T. (Leadership and Investment for Transformation), a $55 million public-private partnership to improve academics at historically low-performing, high-need schools in western Charlotte, N.C. High-need schools typically have trouble... Read more »
Jul 25 | John Papay, Brown University
Staffing high-poverty schools with effective teachers remains a critical challenge for many districts. Research shows consistently higher turnover rates among teachers in these schools. As explained in a 2013 article in the American Educational Research Journal, this turnover results in organizational instability and a concentration of less experienced, lower performing teachers, both of which... Read more »
Jul 09 | Dan Brown, National Board Certified Teacher
People becoming teachers need significant time to learn their craft before they take on the full responsibility of the job. This is nonnegotiable. No other high-functioning profession tolerates such widespread under-preparation. Ten years ago, straight out of college, I became a teacher. I had no experience in teaching or preparation beyond seven frantic weeks of student teaching during the... Read more »
Jun 27 | Deborah Delisle, Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education
After 38 years in education, my heart is still connected to the classroom. It remains with kids that need the best from their communities every single day if we are to provide them opportunities to strengthen their learning progressions and offer them hope for a bright future. Yet, when I think about our most vulnerable youth, and the schools they attend, I’m reminded that the “best” each child... Read more »
Jun 13 | Jane Coggshall
One way to get high-performing teachers to work in hard-to-staff schools, many believe and some are doing, is to offer them recruitment and retention incentives. But is this approach affordable? And what happens to the students in the schools that the most effective teachers leave? And are teachers really interchangeable?   First, consider the cost. Teachers in the main don’t like to change... Read more »
May 30 | Jane Coggshall, GTL Center Content Lead
New research is calling into question the old chestnut that teachers quickly get better in their first few years on the job and then level off on an effectiveness “plateau.” Using less restrictive statistical models than previous researchers did, some economists have found that veteran teachers do, in fact, get substantially better with time—at least in math, particularly if teachers’ grade-level... Read more »
May 15 | Jane Coggshall, GTL Center Content Lead
Welcome to the inaugural post to the Great Teachers and Leaders for All Learners blog from the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders! In the coming weeks and months, we will be using this space to explore the actions that states and others can take to ensure equitable access to effective educators. We are launching Great Teachers and Leaders for All Learners for the following reasons:... Read more »

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