Teacher Preparation
Nothing that happens in a school matters more than the quality of a student’s teacher, so we are investing in new teacher preparation organizations that set student performance as their chief yardstick.
We know from research that teacher quality matters more than any other school-based factor to a student’s academic achievement. In order to close the achievement gap between low-income students and their wealthier peers, we need to dramatically improve access to quality teaching in underserved communities.
NewSchools aims to seed a market of autonomous, outcomes-oriented teacher preparation organizations, and set a new standard for teacher preparation with student learning at the center. The result will be performance-based teacher preparation organizations that consistently produce teachers whose students make, on average, at least one year of academic growth each school year. In addition, by fostering a teacher preparation Community of Practice, NewSchools will accelerate the identification, development and adoption of the most effective approaches to performance-based teacher preparation. Our policy advocacy work supports this effort by advancing public policy that helps to create demand and provide support and funding for performance-based teacher preparation.