Studies indicate that it can take three to five years for turnaround efforts to have an overall impact on student achievement, but leading indicators provide early evidence of progress and guidance for mid-course corrections. The Reform Support Network’s brief, Leading Indicators for School Improvement: A Review of State Education Agency Practices, examines current SEA practices for collecting and using leading indicators, and identifies emerging promising practices in States, including Colorado and Rhode Island.

The quality of a teacher’s instruction is widely understood to be the most important school-based factor in student learning. By taking steps to retain their strongest teachers, principals can maximize the impact of teacher retention on instructional quality. A new brief from the Reform Support Network, Incorporating Retention of Effective and Highly Effective Teachers in Principal Evaluations, explores promising State and district approaches for incorporating teacher retention standards into principal evaluation frameworks.

On April 10, 2015 in Nashville, Tennessee, the Reform Support Network brought together leaders from State education agencies planning to make educator compensation a key element of their State Plans to Ensure Equitable Access. The convening featured presentations by the Tennessee Department of Education, Tennessee district leaders and researchers concerning the State’s efforts to support district-based compensation reform. The Reform Support Network has published Implementing Differentiated Compensation Systems for Educators to summarize the discussions at the convening and the work undertaken since by participating States.

Classroom observations give teachers the opportunity to receive meaningful and direct feedback about their practice, but many observers still struggle to accurately assess teacher performance and give high-quality feedback. The Reform Support Network has published Using Observations to Improve Teacher Practice: How States Can Build Meaningful Observation Systems, which summarizes three strategies to manage these challenges and offers examples of how States have addressed them in the field.

The PROGRESS blog recently launched a series of interviews with principals and teachers representing 14 of the 337 National Blue Ribbon Schools for 2014. The National Blue Ribbon program recognizes public and private elementary, middle and high schools based on their overall academic excellence or their progress in closing achievement gaps across groups of students. Interview themes include high expectations for student achievement, a collaborative culture, openness to new ideas and using data to inform decision-making.