William Taylor, 29, a third generation Washington, D.C. resident stands out for a number of reasons. For one, he is an African American man who taught math at an elementary school for many years. Taylor excelled in the role, so much so that he now coaches his fellow math teachers at Aiton Elementary School, which is located in a high-poverty Washington D.C. neighborhood. He has also been profiled in the national news--specifically in "The Atlantic"--where it was noted that, in a typical school year, 60 percent of Taylor's students start their first day in his class doing math below grade level, but by the end of the year, 90 percent of his students are performing above grade level. For his exemplary work Taylor earned $131,000 in 2013--another factor that makes him stand out as a public school teacher. In 2013, after seven straight years of extraordinary performance reviews Taylor received a base salary of $96,000, a $25,000 bonus for being a highly effective teacher in a high-poverty school, and a $10,000 award for outstanding teaching and dedication to his work. With the money he's saved since he started teaching, Taylor recently bought a house in Washington, a city that annually ranks as one of the most-expensive cities in America. He also purchased his dream car: a black Chevrolet Camaro. Taylor's financial success was made possible by the District of Columbia Public Schools', or DCPS, revamped teacher compensation system known as IMPACTplus. Introduced in 2009, IMPACTplus redesigned the step-and-lane pay scale--which rewarded teachers solely for years of experience and degree attainment--to include measures of performance and school leadership. Before the implementation of IMPACTplus, Taylor earned $42,000 a year as a teacher and gave serious consideration to changing to a more lucrative profession. "The [increased] compensation has made me more inclined to stay in education," Taylor says now. "It also makes me more inclined to be a teacher in DCPS because if I go to other districts, I'm not making that type of money." Through IMPACTplus, teachers like Taylor who earn highly effective ratings on IMPACT--the DCPS teacher evaluation system that evaluates teacher performance through multiple measures, including student performance and observation of practice--receive substantial raises to their base salaries in addition to annual bonuses. Early data from DCPS show this strategy of financially rewarding high-performing teachers more may be starting to pay dividends. A recent study found that DCPS has retained 92 percent of its highly effective teachers and 86 percent of its effective teachers between the 2010 and 2012 school years. By contrast, only 59 percent of the district's minimally effective teachers are still in DCPS during the same time period. In addition, another recent report found that while compensation was one of the top three reasons cited by high-performing teachers for leaving the classroom in other districts, in DCPS, high-performing teachers who left the district ranked compensation at the bottom of the list--20th out of 20 reasons--for ceasing to teach. Furthermore, over the last several years, the number of DCPS applicants for teaching positions rose by 45 percent. "We have effectively eliminated compensation as a reason our top teachers leave--and we're increasingly seeing great teachers coming to DCPS because they want to teach in a district where they can be paid what they deserve," said Scott Thompson, DCPS's deputy chief of human capital for teacher effectiveness. DCPS is not the only district that has overhauled its compensation system with the aim of paying effective educators substantially more than they earned in years prior, yet it is still an unusual practice. In nearly 90 percent of districts across the nation, teachers are not recognized for their effectiveness through increased compensation. This report reveals the key policy decisions undertaken by 10 districts that have made it possible to revamp their compensation systems and, at the same time, both keep their systems solvent and achieve district goals. While the specific goals of each district vary, all 10 districts used compensation to attract, retain, and leverage high-performing teachers. The 10 districts presented in this report have been among the first in the nation to redesign their teacher compensation systems. These so-called first-mover districts include: Baltimore City, Maryland; Denver, Colorado; Douglas County, Colorado; Harrison School District 2, Colorado; Hillsborough County, Florida; Lawrence, Massachusetts; New Haven, Connecticut; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Putnam County, Tennessee; and Washington, D.C. First-mover districts vary in location, size, governance structure, and student academic performance, proving that diverse districts throughout the country can find ways to reform teacher compensation systems regardless of context. The first-mover districts considered the following key components during the teacher compensation redesign process. Not all districts altered each.

Transform Your School’s Substitute Teaching Experience Just like everything else, substitute teaching is about to undergo a big change. In Substantial Classrooms: Redesigning the Substitute Teaching Experience, authors Jill Vialet and Amanda von Moos usher in a new era of innovation in substitute teaching. Threaded with concrete and actionable ways to improve the experience of substitute teaching for administrators, students, and the teachers themselves, Substantial Classrooms is a leading voice for innovation and renewal in substitute teaching. Instead of viewing substitute teachers as a placeholder in an educator’s absence, this book encourages readers to view substitute teachers as vital resources that diversify the typical classroom learning experience. While other books look only at making a bad situation bearable, this book re-examines substitute teaching with an eye towards reinventing it as a unique and valuable part of students’ educational experience. Key themes of Substantial Classrooms include: How substitute teaching works today Applying human-centered design to create change in legacy systems like substitute teaching Concrete and inspiring examples of different models for substitute teaching, for example, reimagining it as paid fieldwork for aspiring teachers. In addition to these key themes, every chapter includes stories and techniques from dynamic and innovative educational practitioners. This must-have guide to substitute teaching can improve schools everywhere and revolutionize the way educators, school and district leaders, colleges, and community partners view the experience of substitute teaching as a lever to positively impact schools.

Redesigning Special Education Teacher Preparation describes both challenges and possible solutions to redesigning and restructuring high-incidence teacher preparation programs so graduates will meet the Highly Qualified Teacher requirements and be prepared to teach students with high-incidence disabilities. This powerful new text discusses many possible reforms, including field-based teacher preparation, a focus on evidence-based core practices and teacher moves, collaboration with K–12 school-based partners as teacher educators, interdisciplinary collaboration across university faculty, and a grounding in current expectations for high-stakes accountability and program evaluation.

This book clarifies current efforts to reform teaching by providing a conceptual analysis of what a professional and a bureaucratic view of teaching entail. Case studies are presented illustrating what happens when differing approaches to teachers' work are tried in three school districts. The first chapter describes the two approaches to reform by examining their conceptions of what students should learn and how and what teachers should teach. The next three chapters present the stories of three districts' efforts to redesign teaching; the teacher program is described in its district context, and issues of implementation are analyzed. Chapter 5 examines how the three districts implemented divergent conceptions of teacher reform. Chapter 6 analyzes the politics of redesign by examining the roles of different groups in shaping district policies. The final chapter synthesizes the arguments of the book and suggests that while short-term improvements can be accomplished through bureaucracy, serious reform requires professionalization. An extensive reference list and three appendices--research methods, a site visit guide, and an academy survey--complete the volume. (LL)