Protected: Teacher Preparation

Introduction

Teachers matter. Outstanding teachers raise student achievement, close attainment gaps and set up their students to succeed in college and careers. Education First helps school systems, institutions of higher education, state leaders, funders and nonprofits to improve the quality of teaching by changing how they recruit, select, prepare, place and retain educators; how they support, develop and evaluate teachers; and how they elevate the voices and roles of teacher leaders in policy and practice.

Education First has the experience and know-how to help potential partners meet new 21st century demands on the teaching profession. We have the ability to help states and districts drive better, more strategic teacher preparation targeted towards the particular needs of students in the context of the districts for which they will work. We offer expertise in strategic planning, data analysis and sharing, stakeholder engagement, communications and analysis, all key to ensuring that the teacher preparation ecosystem within states and individual school districts produce what K-12 students need.

A small selection of services we can offer—and examples of recent projects—are listed below.

Designing and Implementing Best Practice Systems and Models

We are currently working with the Talent Office of Indianapolis Public Schools to improve the quality of teachers’ pre-service experiences, in partnership with the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), UPD Consulting and Public Impact. This includes:

• Strengthening student teacher selection and placement to improve individual performance
• Selecting and training cooperating teachers to coach student teachers
• Supplement student teachers’ clinical experience with additional on-the-job training

Strategic Planning, Business Planning and Implementation

We worked with the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) to expand its impact in addressing the national shortage of highly effective STEM teachers. Informed by interviews with 36 key stakeholders, our research surfaced four key findings to inform NMSI’s strategy. This strategy focuses on three aligned levers NMSI believes will most powerfully enable it to achieve its vision. We also developed a four-year implementation plan.

Facilitating Collaboration

For the Broad Foundation, Education First facilitated a convening of representatives from nine state education agencies to explore ways to work together to measure, review and support teacher preparation programs, and to ensure program completers are prepared to make impact with students in the classroom from day one. Leaders from Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Tennessee discussed joint aspirations for actively managing their review and approval of educator preparation programs, for ensuring that they are collecting and using the right data about their programs, and for ensuring their reporting is informative to the various stakeholders.