ERS Tools and Publications are trusted resources for education leaders, practitioners, and policymakers seeking guidance to make transformative change. Looking for something you can’t find? Contact us.
School Design in Action is a new section of our website that features interactive portraits of schools that are optimizing resources for student success.
More »
Part of a series of ERS publications on teacher compensation, this paper explores four steps districts can take now for sustained impact on teacher effectiveness.
More »
In this publication, ERS expands the traditional definition of teacher Professional Development to Professional Growth & Support, which includes any use of people, time, and money that...
More »
Our series of School Budget Hold'em winning hands videos illustrates how to reach a target budget reduction while prioritizing different areas. This video shows one way to balance quality...
More »
Education Resource Strategies recently hosted a webinar on how to play the budget trade-off game called School Budget Hold'em. The game lets district leaders, and anyone involved in the...
More »
School districts have the responsibility to design a compensation structure that maximizes their ability to meet teacher recruitment and retention goals within the context of long-term...
More »
One out of a series of three ERS publications on teacher compensation, this paper explores how to rethink compensation and career paths to attract and retain the most effective teachers.
More »
Ten years ago, D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) had 65,000 students. Today it has fewer than 45,000. The severe enrollment decline was a wake-up call for the district. Starting in 2007, DCPS...
More »
Before schools can systematically implement a district’s vision for excellent school practices, district leadership must clearly articulate exactly what school strategies they believe...
More »
“Turnaround Case Studies” is an analysis of strategies to turn around low-performing schools undertaken by six large urban districts and four education management organizations. These...
More »
In the fall of 2007, Education Resource Strategies (ERS) was invited by Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission to conduct a Resource Use Analysis for the School District of Philadelphia...
More »
View the posters that compare the turnaround strategies of the districts that attended Education Resource Strategies’ Sustaining Turnaround at Scale Summit held in October 2011.
ERS held...
More »
In 2008, the U-46 School District in Illinois faced a budget deficit of $45 million. Instead of deciding to do less with limited funds, the district worked with the school board and...
More »
In 2006, Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District made a bold move. It began to strategically staff a subset of its lowest-performing schools with its district’s best principals. Five years...
More »
Despite success turning around many of its lowest-performing schools, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District found that nine of its schools were still struggling. To improve these...
More »
Denver Public Schools (DPS) took an innovative look at how it could support individual school efforts to restructure and align resources—people, time, and money—to drive student achievement.
More »
Hear from:
Sam Franklin, Executive Director of the Office of Teacher Effectiveness, Pittsburgh Public Schools
Brian Pick, Deputy Chief Academic Officer, D.C. Public Schools
Alyssa...
More »
The School System 20/20 infographic lets you see the possibilities for system transformation through ERS' seven-strategy framework. It illustrates the challenges to reallocating people,...
More »
One Vision, Seven Strategies is the culmination of ERS' deep experience working with school systems around the country. It presents our vision for transforming school systems and why...
More »
Rethinking the Value Proposition to Improve Teaching Effectiveness explores the complete set of offerings and experiences provided by a school system to a teacher. We explore what the...
More »
This paper explores typical goals of compensation redesign and implications for five main design considerations, including: base salary, district priority incentives, school roles,...
More »
These instructions will help leaders organize and play Budget Hold'em.
Use the Budget Hold'em for Districts Facilitator's Guide to play the in-person version of the game, using decks of...
More »
Millions of education dollars are trapped each year. At this time of continued budget shortfalls when every dollar spent on education must yield maximum returns in student...
More »
Across the country, states and school districts are focusing on turning around the nation’s lowest-performing schools. This focus on school turnaround, while welcome, is not new. And...
More »
This Getting Started guide is part of a series of publications designed to support your efforts to improve resource use in your district. Use this overview for a quick introduction to...
More »
Turnaround efforts at individual schools will not result in widespread, sustainable change without fundamental shifts in the way districts evaluate school, student, and teacher needs and...
More »
ERS articulates for states what we know about district resource use and how states’ policies can best help district efforts. ERS Director Don Hovey gave this presentation in Miami at the...
More »