Improving Teaching Effectiveness

de Brian M. Stecher, Deborah J. Holtzman, Michael S. Garet, Laura S. Hamilton, John Engberg

"This interim report presents estimates of the overall effect that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative has had on student outcomes through the 20132014 school year. The initiative's aim is to encourage and support strategic human-capital reforms that are intended to improve the ways in which "teachers are recruited, evaluated, supported, retained, and rewarded." The reform's cornerstone is the development and implementation of teacher-evaluation systems based on student achievement growth; structured classroom observations by principals or trained peers; and other inputs, such as student or parent surveys. These evaluations are used to guide personnel practices in staffing, professional development, and compensation and career-ladder decisions with the goal of giving every student access to highly effective teachers. The report covers Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) in Florida, Memphis City Schools (MCS) in Tennessee, and Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) in Pennsylvania. The initiative has not had the dramatic positive effects on student outcomes for which the foundation had hoped. Through 20132014, most estimated effects on student outcomes were insignificant or negative, but there was a positive effect in grades 38 for math in PPS. However, impact estimates were increasing in 20132014 (the fifth year after the intervention began) in many sites, which suggests that the reforms might be on the way to having a positive effect."--