Dive Brief:

• A two-year old program in Washington, DC, trains expert teachers on techniques in classroom observation, instructional feedback, and coaching in order to improve teacher support quality.
• The voluntary program is one of a handful across the country intended to expand the influence of high-quality teachers and overhaul the way teacher development is conducted.
• This year, roughly a quarter of schools participated, sending 105 teachers to receive the summer training, which is then applied back in the educator's home school.

Dive Insight:

Education Week reports that programs like the one in DC are on the rise as the role of the principal morphs and teacher development undergoes major changes. But these programs have also received a financial boost from the federal government.

For example, the DC program is funded in part using federal Teacher Incentive Fund dollars intended to facilitate pay-for-performance programs. Teachers receive a $2,500 raise and also get far more time to work with peers on improving their classroom management and instruction. The result, district leaders say, is a big improvement in teacher professional development, which has drawn criticism recently for failing to actually improve students’ learning.

The professional development teacher leaders can offer “[is] much more targeted to schools’ needs and much more honed to the teacher-practice needs,” Katie Michaels Burke, who oversees the program, told Education Week. “This isn’t some person from central office coming in and saying, ‘This is what we’re doing now.’”