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We Get Uncommon Results in Uncertain Times.

You face pressure to accelerate learning. We want to build an education system that serves everyone. That's why we ensure partners have reliable and practical evidence of what is changing, and we share our research with the field.

Evidence Matters.

Our best-in-class evaluation tools and rigorous methods meet the high bar of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), allowing us to build on what is working and enable lasting instructional improvement across student learning and experience, teacher knowledge and practice, and school and system conditions.

What Works Clearinghouse Tier 1 Impact

A recent study of our Chicago Collaborative professional development program is one of only two studies of professional development in the What Works Clearinghouse to receive an ESSA Tier 1 rating in the past decade. The study found that an average teach rose to the top third of effectiveness over the duration of the program.

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2023 Annual Report

Our 2023 Annual Report is a journey through our major achievements from the past year. We highlight programmatic successes, growth, and lessons learned that have all been made possible with your support and partnership.

Read the Report
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The Need

To Accelerate Learning, Systemic Change Can’t Wait.

Today, school system leaders face staggering obstacles and competing priorities caused by historical inequity, a changing world, and the recent shocks of a global pandemic. Teachers face urgency to accelerate and reimagine learning, but too few have sufficient support. Too many students at the margins are not ready for their next step because they haven’t yet had a fair opportunity to learn.

All of this has pushed schools to their limits. Structural changes to how districts cultivate excellent teaching can’t wait, but they can’t do it all alone.

We’re Proving What’s Possible.

The large majority of education interventions produce weak or null effects. We’re breaking the trend.

Multiple rigorous studies with independent researchers conclude that our approach improves students’ literacy and math learning, student experience, and teacher retention at higher rates than peer organizations and competing interventions.

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Better yet, those results endure years after partnership. One randomized control trial found that Leading Educators’ support resulted in student growth that outpaced learning in schools with similar characteristics. Teachers reach new professional heights, and more students thrive.

What We're Up Against

It’s often said that the system we have is getting the results it was designed for. So, what needs to change to accelerate learning? Here’s what the research says we’re up against.

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$18,000 per teacher

spent every year on professional development that doesn’t work. For-profit vendors and curriculum providers have flooded the market with one-size-fits-nobody workshops and trainings that fail to address the complexity of excellent and equitable teaching.

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133 hours

wasted each year in each core subject on assignments that are not grade-appropriate. Few teachers receive deep development on college and career readiness standards during their preparation programs and on the job.

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Only 3 in 10 teachers

show improvement from common "one-and-done" PD despite $8 billion of yearly spending nationwide. Traditional models aren't working, but teachers still need opportunities to improve.

Sparking Double-Digit Literacy Gains in Harlem

One year into the New York City Reads initiative, there is a rare bright spot. Harlem Community School District 5 is seeing its highest literacy rates in decades after science of reading support from Leading Educators.

  • By the end of the 2023-24 school year, 38% of the district’s students scored at or above grade-level expectations for reading on iReady, a significant improvement from just 14% at the start of the school year.
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Transforming Charleston County's Turnaround Schools

As school districts across the country work to recover from pandemic disruptions and prepare all students for the future, the coastal lands of Charleston County, South Carolina, offer a shining example of what is possible.

Acceleration Schools have reversed pre-pandemic declines and accomplished significant improvement in math and ELA proficiency from 2021 to 2023. Literacy scores in turnaround schools have doubled, substantially outpacing state averages and other Title I schools.

How? Since 2020, Leading Educators and Charleston County School District‘s turnaround schools have partnered to build robust professional learning and coaching infrastructure tied to high-quality instructional materials, so teachers the the support and professional conditions to practice what they teach.

Dig into the results and methods
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Getting Real Results Beyond Test Scores

Together with our partners, we aim to improve not only learning outcomes but life outcomes.

Lasting systemic change fundamentally shifts what teachers know, think, and do, as well as the support and conditions that all make it stick. So, we assess our impact on all three in addition to student outcomes, equipping partners to sustainably accelerate learning.

Best-in-class Impact on Student Learning

We’re driven to see all students learn to high levels, no matter where they start. We use rigorous evaluation methods to understand both changes in knowledge and in students’ experiences, recognizing that they’ll need more than academics to be ready for the world that awaits them.

Student Outcomes
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Explore Our Studies

For decades, there’s been little evidence that teacher professional development makes a difference for students. We’re changing that.

Several rigorous studies over the past decade demonstrate that Leading Educators’ job-embedded, content-specific approach to strengthening teaching leads to statistically significant gains for students that surpass those of other leading interventions. Learn more below.

Leading EducatorsLeading Educators
"It's really hard for those in the system to be experts at everything. And so to the degree that we can specialize and focus our energy on certain areas, then we can lean on partners to carry the water on some other areas of their expertise."
Kevin Polston, Superintendent at Kentwood Public Schools
Strengthening the System

Strong, actionable development can help teachers build on their strengths so students’ opportunities in the classroom continue to expand over time. That’s why we help partners scale professional learning systems, designed for them, that are radically improving instruction today. 

We guide district leaders to connect the structures, conditions, and leadership necessary for teachers to practice what they teach, together, so that every student learns what they need to succeed. When a school is a place where teachers, as well as students, learn, new levels of progress become possible.

Sustained Conditions for Continuous Improvement

Every community has inherent strengths to build upon for even greater impact. Years of partnerships and the research on professional learning have helped us distill those characteristics that make some school systems more successful than others at reaching strong teaching and leadership at scale. We call these resources the enabling conditions.

Enduring Conditions
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Evaluation Advisory Board

Through the support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, we are advised by an esteemed group of experts in education evaluation.
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Robert Berry

Professor of Mathematics, University of Virginia
Robert Q. Berry, III is the Samuel Braley Gray Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Virginia the Curry School of Education & Human Development with an appointment in Curriculum Inst...
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Miah Daughtery

Director of Content Advocacy and Design at NWEA
A focused and passionate educator, Miah has more than ten years' experience at the classroom, district, and state levels.
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Jessica Eadie

Chief Operating Officer at Student Achievement Partners
Jessica Eadie is the Chief Operating Officer at Student Achievement Partners.
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Heather Hill

Professor
Heather C. Hill studies policies and programs designed to improve mathematics teacher and teaching quality.
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Matthew Steinberg

Associate Professor
Dr. Matthew P. Steinberg is an Associate Professor of Education Policy in the College of Education and Human Development, a University Affiliate Faculty at the Schar School of Policy and Government, a...
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Robert Berry

Miah Daughtery

headshot of jessica eadie

Jessica Eadie

headshot of dr. heather hill

Heather Hill

headshot of Matthew Steinberg

Matthew Steinberg

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