Improving Teaching Effectiveness

"This interim report presents estimates of the overall effect that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative has had on student outcomes through the 20132014 school year. The initiative's aim is to encourage and support strategic human-capital reforms that are intended to improve the ways in which "teachers are recruited, evaluated, supported, retained, and rewarded." The reform's cornerstone is the development and implementation of teacher-evaluation systems based on student achievement growth; structured classroom observations by principals or trained peers; and other inputs, such as student or parent surveys. These evaluations are used to guide personnel practices in staffing, professional development, and compensation and career-ladder decisions with the goal of giving every student access to highly effective teachers. The report covers Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) in Florida, Memphis City Schools (MCS) in Tennessee, and Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) in Pennsylvania. The initiative has not had the dramatic positive effects on student outcomes for which the foundation had hoped. Through 20132014, most estimated