In this paper, Leading Educators and the Aspen Institute propose a roadmap to empower teachers to lead from the front of the classroom. This paper outlines key phases that system administrators will need to consider as they build teacher leadership systems that address their highest priorities. For each phase, the Aspen Institute offers a…

Teacher evaluation has emerged as a key strategy for improving student outcomes in public education. The rationale is compelling: teachers vary widely in their effectiveness, and evaluation systems need to identify and address this variation. Performance evaluations have historically been largely perfunctory: no meaningful feedback is provided, no…

In the summer of 2012, thousands of teachers across the United States attended several days of professional development workshops. The workshops, which focused on the Common Core State Standards, were part of a Tennessee Department of Education initiative in teacher leadership. The department recruited and trained 200 highly-effective teachers to…

"Means to an End" is a practical toolkit for structuring the design process, elevating important issues, and identifying tensions and trade-offs that need to be resolved. The guide was conceived at a 2011 Aspen Institute workshop that brought together leading educators, researchers, and policymakers to share strategies for designing and…

Hillsborough County Public Schools has launched a teacher evaluation system that has attracted attention from educators and policy makers across the country. Centralized, collaborative, communications-driven and adaptable are key characteristics of Hillsborough's approach. The system consists of two main components: observation of instruction and…