Leading Educators
Closing the gap in children's academic achievement in the US
70 Teachers have completed or enrolled in Leading
Educators
3,075 children have benefitted from the Leading Educators
programme
Children from low-income families in the US are seven times less likely to complete their secondary education than their more affluent counterparts. Part of the problem is the large proportion of teachers in high-need schools who leave their jobs each year. This is at its worst in schools in deprived areas, where more than a quarter of teachers leave their jobs each year, twice the rate in affluent schools.
Leading Educators is helping to reduce this damaging turnover by filling a gap in professional development. Most US government teacher development programmes focus on heads or class teachers, but we target promising mid-level teachers in poor-performing urban schools. We train them in the leadership and management skills needed to raise children's academic achievements and turn around under-performing schools.
Our three-year partnership with Leading Educators draws on our UK experience with Teaching Leaders and is our first programme in the United States.
Our impact
Leading Educators equips teachers to maximise their students' progress. Our goal is for pupils taught by 'Leading Educators' to move up at least 1.5 grade (academic year) levels each year.
The programme started operating in 2008 in New Orleans, focusing on three impoverished districts and has since expanded to Kansas City, Missouri. In August 2011 3,075 pupils across 40 government schools were directly benefiting from the enhanced skills of the 43 mid-level teachers who had completed the two-year programme.
Teachers who complete the Leading Educators programme emerge as highly-skilled individuals who make positive changes to the culture and management of their schools, and to the performance of their peers. As a result, children start to learn better. The majority of Leading Educator participants have been assigned increasing responsibilities and additional leadership opportunities since joining the programme.