We are thrilled to be included in an Ed Week collection of commentaries on improving teaching, released this week. It’s encouraging to see clear consensus that teaching is the most critical piece of education and that finding new strategies to improve teaching effectiveness must be at the forefront of any reform. The perspectives represented in this collection raise issues around teacher teaming, education, assessment, and adjusting to new realities. Our commentary focuses on broadening the conversation around teacher evaluation beyond just test scores and on how new evaluation systems can serve as a catalyst to transform teaching.

What can districts do now?

If you’re looking for ideas on how to transform teaching, please take a look at our recently published guide “The Teaching Job: Restructuring for Effectiveness.” This guide is designed to help district leaders take action now by assessing their districts’ practice in five principles:

1. Defining and Measuring Effectiveness: Districts must define and measure teaching effectiveness, anchored in evidence of student learning, in a way that provides the foundation for the next four areas of the human capital system.
2. Hiring: Districts need to recruit talented individuals who fit district needs, and they need to facilitate a selection and assignment process that allows school leaders to hire teachers with the right experience and capability for the job.
3. Individual Growth: Districts must invest to help new teachers succeed and structure job assignments, team assignments, and career opportunities to encourage individual professional growth and retain the most effective teachers and leaders.
4. School-Based Support: Districts must ensure that teachers are deliberately assigned to teams with complementary skills and experience. Teacher teams must have support and coaching that respond to student and teacher learning needs and that match the school’s instructional design. Collective bargaining agreements must allow teachers adequate time for collaboration around student work.
5. Compensation and Career Path: Districts need to create new compensation models and career paths that reward the greatest contributors, promote differentiated roles, and attract top talent to challenging schools.

Join the Conversation

Transforming teaching in our schools is complicated and requires difficult conversation, commitment to real change and contributions from many perspectives. This new collection of commentaries is a great overview of some of the more creative thinking on this critical topic. Please make comments and join this important conversation.