Overdeck Family Foundation Grantmaking & Impact Report Features Leading Educators as Bright Spot

The Overdeck Family Foundation‘s new Grantmaking & Impact Report explores the importance of innovation, evidence, and growth at an important time of change and uncertainty for the education sector. We’re proud to be featured as a bright spot for unlocking the power of evidence to support effective decision-making and instructional development.

The Problem

Few educators receive adequate professional learning on grade-level standards and the curricular materials they use with students, hindering students’ access to lessons that meet their full potential. The evidence is evolving on which types of professional development models show improvements in teacher practice and student learning, with more work to be done to identify effective models.

The Evidence

Leading Educators works with school systems to design research-based cycles of professional learning that build teachers’ knowledge, skill, and confidence in using their curriculum effectively and equitably over the school year.

Alongside implementing highly-customized instructional improvement strategies for districts, we have conducted a series of studies examining the model’s impact on teachers and students. A quasi-experimental study conducted in 2022 produced emerging evidence that Leading Educators’ support for teachers and school leaders increases the likelihood that students achieve proficiency or above on state math and ELA exams.

Also in 2022, Leading Educators conducted a randomized controlled trial focused on its Chicago, IL-based professional development program, Chicago Collaborative, to study the impact of teacher learning and coaching on student achievement. The rigorous RCT study design, which allows Leading Educators’ model to meet “Tier 1” evidence standards established by the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), assessed the program’s impact on student achievement, and produced suggestive evidence of impact on students’ math scores after one year.

Learn more by reading the feature below.