What Does it Take to Nurture and Retain Effective Educators?

Every student deserves equitable access to an effective teacher in every classroom.  In 2010, Youth Empowerment Services, Inc. (YES) introduced the Educator Effectiveness Process (EEP) in participating charter school districts as a tool for evaluating teachers and principals.  In 2016, YES received a five-year Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grant from the US Department of Education (USDOE) to refine the EEP to target teacher observation/evaluation, professional learning, and a performance based compensation system (PBCS) in 16 high-need schools in Texas and Arizona. The EEP aims to ensure that the most effective educators are compensated accordingly, underperforming educators receive targeted, data-driven interventions to become more effective, and ultimately, that every classroom has a high quality teacher.

Basis collaborated with YES, five partner charter districts, and the USDOE to conduct a mixed method evaluation of this reform effort.  The evaluation gauges formative feedback to shape program implementation and summative measures of program impact.  In Year One, we analyzed the implementation and impact of the PBCS to capture perspectives of teachers, school leaders, evaluators, and district administrators.  The results informed revisions to the induction of new teachers to EEP schools, professional development offerings to instructional coaches, and internal communication processes.  Year Two measured the implementation of a revised human capital management system, resulting in targeted co-observations and the creation of a professional development review process. Year Three focuses on efforts toward sustainability and embedding the reform into the districts’ cultures.