Scaling What Works
New research from 40+ district and school network professional learning programs reveals what reliably drives student learning—and how systems can apply those insights to sustain improvement.
Get the executive summaryImprovement is possible.
Across the country, educators are proving that when professional learning is coherent, sustained, and aligned across roles, student growth follows.
Leading Educators’ new research, Scaling What Works: Proven Pathways to Results That Matter, reveals the conditions that make this happen—and how systems can design for success, even amid budget pressures and complexity.
The Findings
Well-Designed Professional Learning Accelerates Student Outcomes
Twenty-one cases demonstrated positive student impact, meeting ESSA Tier 3 evidence standards or higher. These schools outpaced the gains in similar schools, experiencing an impact equivalent to 9 months of additional learning on average.
- In math, supported schools improved 8 to 34 percent, outpacing growth in similar schools.
- In ELA, supported schools improved 12 to 18 percent, outpacing growth in similar schools.
- Districts that implemented the Leading Educators’ approach systemwide gained 1 to 3 NAEP points more than comparable large-city districts.
Schools supported by Leading Educators began with clear areas of need, with scores below those of 70-93% of schools in the state before intervention. Overall, impact was achieved at a relatively low per-student cost, ranging from $10 to $300 annually.
Behind the Success
Every high-impact partnership shared three conditions:
- Leaders learning alongside teachers, building a shared understanding of excellent teaching and the preparation necessary to bring it to life
- Sustained coaching (≥8 hours per year) for at least one instructional role
- Focus on subject-specific pedagogy and use of high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) in professional learning
Improvement isn’t luck—it’s the result of intentional design.
We’re Setting the Research Standard: An Explainer on the ESSA Tiers
Let’s Scale What Works — Together
If you’re exploring ways to strengthen your instructional system, fund work that advances educator effectiveness, or shape the future of teaching and learning through innovation, we’d love to connect.
Growing the field is a collective effort.
This research was generously supported by the Research Partnership for Professional Learning (RPPL), a one-of-a-kind collaborative uniting professional learning (PL) organizations, researchers, school districts, and those impacted by PL through research-practice partnerships that advance professional learning in support of every teacher and student.
We also thank our research partners at University of Passau, ETS Research Institute, and Civilytics Consulting.
Commentary: The Hidden Pitfalls of Education Research
Evidence matters, but what if the way we’re interpreting it is all wrong? In a piece for The Learning Counsel, Leading Educators researcher Rebecca Taylor-Perryman unpacks the limitations of “statistical significance” and how practitioners can better understand the quality of research.
Sidebar: How should you think about cost?
Matthew Kraft, Professor of Education and Economics at Brown University, offers five overarching guidelines for interpreting the results of education interventions.
His analysis compiles per-pupil cost data from 68 education interventions, ranging from just $18 at the 1st percentile to over $61,000 at the 99th percentile, to provide a powerful way to contextualize cost alongside impact.
