Using ARRA Funds to Improve Teacher Effectiveness and Equitable Distribution: An Interactive Mapping Tool
Component 7: Leadership Development
Nexus Point: Use evaluation instruments to identify and train teachers to serve as leaders.
Intersects With: Performance Management
Funding Stream: Title I, Educational Technology State Grants, State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) Program, Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) Program
Release of Funds: These funds are available during Phases 1 and 2.
Citation: Title I Guidance, SFSF Guidance
Readiness to Pursue Steps
- Establish a working group comprised of teachers, principals, union representatives, district administration, and state education agency (SEA) staff.
- Create state standards for effective teaching practice.
- Determine whether the SEA has sufficient information technology capacity to collect the necessary data.
- Develop a plan to implement the new teacher evaluation system.
- Estimate the cost of developing new evaluation instruments and ongoing implementation costs.
- Develop a plan to identify funding sources beyond ARRA, if needed, for sustainability.
- Establish and implement a fair and reliable teacher evaluation system that provides ongoing feedback to teachers about their performance based on objective measures.
Promising Practices
The Center for Educator Compensation Reform (CECR), a center funded by the U.S. Department of Education and created to support the TIF grantees, developed a national map that highlights compensation reforms across the country and provides links to more information. See http://cecr.ed.gov/initiatives/maps/ for more information. These profiles provide examples of the vast array of performance-based compensation programs across the country, including the use of evaluation instruments to base teacher pay on classroom performance.
Nexus Point: Use evaluation instruments to provide incentives to effective teachers, teacher leaders, and principals.
Intersects With: Performance Management and Compensation and Incentives
Funding Stream: Title I, Educational Technology State Grants, SFSF Program, TIF Program
Release of Funds: These funds are available in Phases 1 and 2.
Citation: Title I Guidance, SFSF Guidance
Readiness to Pursue Steps
- Establish a working group comprised of teachers, principals, union representatives, district administration, and SEA staff.
- Create state standards for effective teaching practice.
- Determine whether the SEA has sufficient information technology capacity to collect the necessary data.
- Develop a plan to implement the new teacher evaluation system.
- Estimate the cost of developing new evaluation instruments and ongoing implementation costs.
- Develop a plan to identify funding sources beyond ARRA, if needed, for sustainability.
- Establish and implement a fair and reliable teacher evaluation system that provides ongoing feedback to teachers about their performance based on objective measures.
Promising Practices
CECR, a center funded by the U.S. Department of Education and created to support the TIF grantees, developed a national map that highlights compensation reforms across the country and provides links to more information. See http://cecr.ed.gov/initiatives/maps/ for more information. These profiles provide examples of the vast array of performance-based compensation programs across the country, including the use of evaluation instruments to base teacher pay on classroom performance.
Timing and Requirements for ARRA Funding
Title I
- The second phase of Title I ARRA funds were scheduled for distribution on September 30, 2009. On Monday, August 3, 2009, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) issued a press release announcing that the release of the second half of these funds will accelerate to “on or around September 1, 2009.”
- The Title I fact sheet issued on April 1, 2009 stated, “In order to receive the remaining Title I, Part A ARRA funds, a state must submit, for review and approval by the Department, additional information that addresses how the state will meet the accountability and reporting requirements in section 1512 of the ARRA.” At the Title I directors meeting held the last week in July, however, ED announced that no additional information would be required to receive the second half of the Title I ARRA funds.
SFSF
- On July 29, 2009, a notice of proposed requirements, definitions, and approval criteria for the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, Phase II, was published in the Federal Register. The deadline for comments on these draft materials is August 28, 2009.
- The metrics by which ED will monitor state progress are contained in these documents and identified as “assurance indicators and descriptors.” ED also published a table that indicates, for each reporting item, whether the state is required to provide new information or if it is already being reporting to ED.
TIF
- A fact sheet on the TIF ARRA on the ED website states that ED anticipates the proposed program requirements will be published in the Federal Register before the end of August 2009.
Enhancing Education Through Technology State Grants (ED Tech)
- Guidance was published in July 2009 by ED.
