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Current Initiatives

The Teachers ²¹ research and development team has dedicated its time towards two crucial research initiatives over the past year. Both the Secondary School Reform Initiative and Compensation Reform Initiative work to improve school environments.

In Spring, 2010, Teachers ²¹ conducted interviews with a cross-section of superintendents, principals, and teacher leaders across Massachusetts. The interviews were designed to investigate what efforts are underway to reform secondary schools across the Commonwealth, what educational leaders in these schools and districts identify as key areas of interest and concern, and what various educational stakeholders in Massachusetts can do to support comprehensive reform efforts that will create the best learning opportunities for all our students. Findings from the small study suggest several promising practices and some key areas for further policy, practice, and professional support. In short, the following themes emerged:

Secondary School Reform (SSR)

• Districts use time and resources creatively to enhance teacher capacity and improve instruction for all students;
• Districts define 21^st century skills broadly, beyond simply improving access to technology, and promote their attainment in many ways;
• Districts work to personalize learning for students and meet their intellectual and emotional needs, promoting increased choice and responsibility;
• Districts build partnerships by engaging diverse partners in concrete goals and activities and long-term investment in outcomes;
• Districts face several challenges to broad-based reform;
• Limited resources and financial constraints;
• Leadership turnover at all levels;
• Resistance to change;
• Educational jargon that can impede clear goals and progress

Click here to download the report: Navigating Change

Compensation Reform

Teachers²¹, convener of the Working Group for Educator Excellence, supported the WGEE to prepare an important paper on the essential principles of an effective educator compensation system. The paper reflects the core principles of the WGEE: that improving educator quality requires a comprehensive approach to reform and that no single reform is sufficient to ensure uniformly high quality teaching and leading.  The paper describes eight essential principles to guide comprehensive reform to existing compensation systems:

• The reforms are linked to a comprehensive and coordinated vision of teaching and learning.

• The process of reform includes broad and meaningful stakeholder participation and endorsement.

• The reforms are designed to promote continuous improvement for educators and schools.

• There are multiple measures of performance and multiple incentives and rewards at all levels of the system.

• The compensation system includes differentiated career opportunities and new roles and responsibilities for teachers and leaders.

• The compensation system promotes and enhances a culture of high expectations, collaboration, teamwork, and innovation.

• The compensation system is designed to be responsive to ongoing feedback about the effectiveness of the overall system.

• The compensation system is sustainable.

Click here to download the Making Sense of Compensation Reform report.