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W H I T E PA P E R / 1
Studies show that a growing number of American students are enrolling
in college—more than ever before. This good news, however, is offset by
the fact that fewer than half of enrollees actually complete their degrees.
Clearly, we are getting better at placing our children in college, but in our
haste to do so we have overlooked a very important fact—many of them
are not even prepared to go.
This paper explores the current deficit of college and career readiness
among K-12 students, and posits increased teacher effectiveness as
a solution to that problem. The paper outlines strategies for creating
effective teachers; describes how to dismantle potential roadblocks to
achieving teacher effectiveness; and recommends tools for making 100
percent of teachers effective, and 100 percent of students college and
career ready.
A surprising new study published by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
has caught the attention of educators all over the US. In contrast to many of the grim
proclamations we’ve grown accustomed to seeing, the data collected by NCES has been
a breath of fresh air, painting a picture of an education system on the mend, actually
improving in a number of significant, measurable ways. High school students, for
example, were reported to have taken more high-level mathematics courses than ever
before, with a majority (60%) claiming to have “definite plans” to graduate from a four
year university.1
This number was up from both 1990 (48%) and 2000 (56%).2
And students’ reported plans for college are more than just talk. According to NCES,
enrollment in degree-graduating postsecondary institutions increased nine percent in the
1990s, and then another 38 percent in the 2000s, with much of the growth in full-time
enrollment.3
By now, over a decade into the 21st century, nearly half of 18-24-year-olds
attend college.
1
“The Condition of Education,” National Center for Education Statistics, accessed July 6, 2012,
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/.
2
ibid
3
“Fast Facts,” National Center for Education Statistics, accessed July 6, 2012,
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98.
The Better-Teacher Breakthrough
See What the Best Schools in America Are Doing to Create More Effective
Teachers, and How Their Students Are Reaping the Benefits

College enrollment rates have continued to rise, overall, since 1979
“High school students are working harder than they were a generation ago,” Education
Week reports in its coverage of the study. “The economic downturn may highlight an
opportunity to put more of them on the path to college.”4
This is all certainly encouraging news, but while NCES’s data highlights a welcome,
positive trend in American education, it does not tell the entire story of college placement
among high school students. As educators over the last two decades have succeeded
in putting students on the “path to college,” they have had a much more difficult time
preparing students for what lies at the end of that path—the stress and rigors of university
life, and ultimately a career. This fact is underscored by other research which finds that,
regardless of increased college enrollment numbers, fewer than half of Americans—only
46 percent—complete college once they start.5
4
Sparks, Sarah D. “Report: U.S. Students Get Serious About High School.” Education Week, May 28,
2012. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/05/24/33condition.h31.html.
5
Harvard Graduate School of Education, “Pathways to Prosperity.” Last modified February 11, 2011.
Accessed July 12, 2012. http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news-impact.
Clearly, we are getting better and better at placing our
children in college, but as the data shows, in our haste to
do so we have overlooked a very important fact—many of
them are not even prepared to go.
Enrollment in College Has Reached an All-time High
Share of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in college
Source: National Center for
Education Statistics, Digest
of Education Statistics 2010,
Table 212
PEW RESEARCH CENTER
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1967 71 75 79 83 87 91 95 99 03 07 09
See What the Best Schools in America Are Doing to Create More
Effective Teachers, and How Their Students Are Reaping the Benefits

Clearly, we are getting better and better at placing our children in college, but as the
data shows, in our haste to do so we have overlooked a very important fact—many of
them are not even prepared to go. It is critical that educators supplement their efforts to
send students to college with a renewed focus on getting those same students ready for
college before they get there.
The Solution: Teacher Effectiveness
Of course, as with so many of the challenges in schools, getting all students college
and career ready is much easier said than done. College and career readiness for all
students requires system-wide planning, teacher buy-in and collaboration, and student
commitment. Students have myriad decisions to make, and they rely on a host of teachers,
community members, and administrators in a complicated system meant to get them on
to life after high school. One of the most difficult steps in creating a more effective system
is simply knowing where to start.
Ray Chavez, principal of Apollo Middle School in Tucson, faced exactly this challenge
when he accepted the call to transform one of the lowest performing schools in Arizona.
In 2007, Chavez was hired to help turn Apollo around, which at the time was labeled
“Underperforming Year II” because of its failure to make AYP for several years, and was on
the cusp of state restructuring. With students who faced the daily challenges of growing
up in impoverished, gang-infested neighborhoods, and with a staff exhausted from so
many years of struggle, Chavez quickly realized that the most important step he could
take to help students would be to improve the quality of teaching at Apollo. He knew that
for his students, success or failure began with their teachers.
So, before he did anything else, Chavez set out to create a body of educators equal to the
massive task he needed to accomplish.
College enrollees struggle to complete their degrees; only 56 percent
finish a bachelor’s degree program within six years
Completion rates at
two-year institutions
are much lower than
at four-year schools
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Four-Year Schools Two-Year Schools
56%
29%

“Every teacher [at the school] was interviewed,” says Chavez. “I selected the ones to keep.
So, essentially, everyone was re-interviewed for their jobs.”
Some of the teachers, unhappy with Chavez’s sweeping, teacher-focused approach to
improving student achievement at Apollo, used the interviews as an opportunity to resign.
“There was an element of [disagreement with my methods] in this school, and that
was hard,” Chavez relates. As a result of the resignations, Apollo underwent a dramatic,
nearly instantaneous staff turnover. Within a few weeks, the middle school had 40 vacant
teaching slots to fill.
Despite the setback, Chavez remained committed to his focus on improving the quality of
teaching at Apollo, because, as he puts it, “in the classroom it’s the teacher who creates
the thunder, the lightning, or the sunshine” [emphasis added].
Tammy Christopherson, assistant principal at Apollo, recalls a vivid change in the teachers
occupying classrooms at Apollo, teachers with a drive to improve their classroom practice.
“We had teachers who wanted to be here,” she said, “who wanted to see the children
succeed. That’s what Ray built [our school improvement] on. He built it on [teachers who
said], ‘we care enough to do our jobs and to keep pushing hard.’”
Within very little time, Chavez and his team of teachers began to see remarkable,
unprecedented change. In its very first year under Principal Chavez, Apollo experienced
a meteoric rise, shooting from “Underperforming Year II,” all the way to “Performing.” By
year three, the school had scored just one point below “Highly Performing,” the highest
achievement designation for a school in Arizona.6
Today, Apollo is in the top 10 percent of
performers of middle schools in the entire state.
6
School Improvement Network, “Changing the Weather at Apollo,” 7:38, February 3, 2011,
http://www.pd360.com/pd360.cfm#tab=videos&page=videosBrowse.

As teachers at Apollo became more effective, student achievement increased dramatically.
Within three years the school transformed from severely underperforming to one of the
most successful in Arizona.
Chavez and his colleagues at Apollo had discovered a truth that nearly all successful
schools understand: the key to student achievement is not better neighborhoods, more
money, or smarter students—it is teacher effectiveness. While a variety of factors will
combine to affect a student’s success, the fact is, with the right teacher, any child can
succeed, and become college and career ready.
Of course, scoring well on state exams is not necessarily an accurate measure of college
and career readiness, but the principle remains: effective teachers produce successful
students. Students learn and improve best when they are taught by effective teachers.
How to Achieve Teacher Effectiveness
It is one thing to examine the results of increased teacher effectiveness, but quite another
to understand exactly how it is achieved.
“Teacher effectiveness can be allusive,” says Chet Linton, CEO and president of education
company School Improvement Network. “To begin with, for teacher effectiveness to really
have an impact, it needs to be achieved by not just one, but by dozens, even hundreds
of educators in a school system. It goes without saying that getting that many teachers
APOLLO STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
StateLevel
Highly Performing
Performing Plus
Performing
Underperforming
Underperforming Year I
Underperforming Year II
2006 2007 2008 2009
The key to student achievement is not better
neighborhoods, more money, or smarter students—it is
teacher effectiveness.

to reach their full potential is an enormous challenge, and one that requires considerable
planning and commitment.”7
To better understand exactly how teacher effectiveness is achieved, it will be useful to
examine the chief roadblocks preventing educators from becoming effective in the first
place. One statistic in particular highlights these roadblocks.
“Every school day, nearly a thousand teachers leave the field of teaching,” researchers
at the Alliance for Education say. “Another thousand teachers change schools, many in
pursuit of better working conditions. And these figures do not include the teachers who
retire.”8
If teacher effectiveness is the key to academic achievement, then imagine what such a
massive turnover rate is doing to the overall quality of teaching at schools.
Chet Linton has been helping educators improve their practice for years, and has seen the
impact that retention has on teacher effectiveness:
The biggest issues in education aren’t student challenges; they’re teacher challenges.
If we can’t hold on to our teachers, how on earth do we expect to hold on to our
students? We continually scratch our heads and wonder about why students struggle in
high school and college, but we lose 50% of teachers within the first few years of their
careers. It takes thousands of hours—many years—to become a master teacher. We’re
losing the most important people in education before they get a chance to become
totally effective.9
The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) has conducted research that reveals causes
of such an alarming turnover rate, and sheds light on the roadblocks that prevent many
teachers from becoming totally effective. The D.O.E. identifies the top 3 reasons that
teachers leave the profession:
1) Lack of planning time
2) Heavy work loads
3) Problematic student behavior10
Even a cursory examination of this list reveals root causes common to each of these
problems. For example, while “heavy work loads” (#2) can clearly cause a “lack of
planning time,” (#1), each of these problems also stems from a lack of support and
training. With the proper lesson planning strategies and time management skills, planning
time opens up, and heavy work loads become manageable.
And while “problematic student behavior” (#3) may not always stem from the heavy work
loads, it can, like reasons 1 and 2, often be traced directly back to a lack of support and training.
7
Chet Linton (chief executive officer, School Improvement Network), in a discussion with author, May 2012.
8
Alliance for Excellent Education, “Teacher Attrition: A Costly Loss to the Nation and to the States.” Last
modified August 1, 2005. Accessed July 2, 2012. www.all4ed.org/files/archive/publications.
9
10
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, “Teacher Follow-up Survey.” Last
modified January 1, 2001. Accessed July 3, 2012. http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/.

Dr. Lisa Leith has decades of experience in classroom management:
“Effective teachers offer students engaging and developmentally appropriate
learning opportunities. They recognize that students who are absorbed in real-world
problem solving, collaboration and critical thinking do not need to be ‘managed.’
Effective teachers create strong relationships with their students, communicate high
expectations and help students to envision a powerful future for themselves. They
offer content that is rigorous and aligned to student interest and motivation. Research
demonstrates that these attributes of teacher efficacy are strengthened by staff
professional development that addresses classroom culture, real-world learning and
response to formative assessment data.”11
Linton echoes Dr. Leith’s sentiments.
“The major issues driving educators away from the profession are the same ones that
prevent some teachers from becoming truly effective. The good news is that none of
these issues is even close to unresolvable. Our teachers are not inherently bad at what
they do. For whatever reason, too many of them just aren’t receiving the support and
professional development opportunities that they need.
“My colleagues and I at School Improvement Network have watched hundreds of
schools overcome each of these problems in relatively little time. All it takes is access
to the right professional development, and an effective system to implement that
development. After 20 years, I have come to understand that we do not have to lose
any of our students—not a single one. If every teacher is effective, and I’ve seen schools
where they are, then 100% college and career readiness is possible.”12
The Teacher Effectiveness System
As we have seen, the primary roadblock preventing every teacher from becoming
completely effective is a lack of proper support and training opportunities. In order to
help educators become effective and to get 100% of students college and career ready,
School Improvement Network has developed the Teacher Effectiveness System (TES). The
Teacher Effectiveness System provides a process to improve teacher practice, and arms
educators with a set of powerful tools that can be used to progress within that process.
Research shows that districts and schools that use the tools in TES produce better
“After 20 years, I have come to understand that we do not
have to lose any of our students—not a single one. If every
teacher is effective, and I’ve seen schools where they are,
then 100% college and career readiness is possible.”
11
Dr. Lisa Leith (director of content, School Improvement Network), in a discussion with author, May 2012.
12

teachers. As a result, these districts and schools experience dramatic increases in student
achievement, driving up student test scores by as much as 28.8% (p.001) in a single year.
Teacher effectiveness isn’t like a light switch, to be simply flipped on and off. Teacher
Effectiveness is achieved through a process that requires preparation, the dedication
of day-to-day work, constant self-examination and improvement, and, perhaps most
importantly, the support of administrators and leaders.
Most administrators understand good teaching and understand their teachers, but many
struggle to find a way to help all of their teachers to truly improve practice on a large
scale. TES solves this problem by providing administrators with a straightforward system
that can easily be implemented in a school or an entire district. The real power of the
system, though, is the way that it enables a single administrator to accurately understand
the needs of each teacher she is responsible for, and to personalize the professional
development experience for every one of them.
TES is composed of six steps, as well as tools to complete those steps:
Step 1: Goals and Objectives
Administrators decide on the goals their districts and schools need to meet, and the steps
they will take to achieve those goals. With TES’s on-demand resources, administrators can
then make those goals and steps visible to every educator in the system.
Step 2: Process and Workflow Management
Administrators create customized forms that they will use to manage the day-to-day work
of achieving their districts’ goals. Pre-observation forms, post observation forms, etc., can
all be customized into templates to help leaders guide staff toward their goals.
These same forms will also provide useful data, so administrators can measure successes and
setbacks, make changes if the need arises, and remain flexible as they work toward goals.
Step 3: Systematic Professional Development
Entire schools or districts will follow a united professional development plan based upon
needs and goals. These plans can be personalized for individual circumstance. Through
PD 360, the professional development component of TES, educators have access to
the largest library of online professional development videos in the world, with over
2,000 videos on 125 topics, presented by the top experts and featuring real teachers
demonstrating best practices in real classrooms.
Teacher Effectiveness is achieved through a process that
requires preparation, the dedication of day-to-day work,
constant self-examination and improvement, and, perhaps
most importantly, the support of administrators and leaders.

Step 4: Observations and Evaluations
Once goals have been established, and a professional development centered plan for
achieving those goals has been put in place, administrators can monitor progress using
Observation 360, the multi-faceted observation tool in TES.
With Observation 360, administrators can gather an extensive number of data points on
teacher performance and progress, and then track those data points in a simple, easy to
use worksheet program. Observation 360 makes it possible for a single person to track
and manage professional development data for dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of
teachers.
Step 5: Personalized Professional Learning
Observation 360 allows administrators to do more than just observe, take notes, and
assign scores—software within the tool will also automatically recommend professional
development videos in real-time, based upon observer notes, and send those
recommendations directly to the teacher being observed. Administrators can also use the
software to make their own recommendations, directing teachers toward a URL, PDF, or
any web-based resource.
With TES, the data gathered from observations and evaluations results in more than just
a score representing teacher effectiveness. It uses data collected in the observation to
help build an understanding of each teachers strengths and weaknesses, and prescribes
training based upon that understanding, to help teachers grow.
Step 6: Progress and Evidence
The data, evaluations, and professional development within TES allow administrators to
see the progress and evidence of teachers effectiveness as they continue to move toward
100% college and career readiness.
Effective Teachers Produce College and Career Ready Students
Every component of the Teacher Effectiveness System has been painstakingly engineered
to make teachers more effective, and as this paper has demonstrated, effective teachers
create successful students.
However, it is one thing to claim that TES gets students college and career ready, and
quite another to actually produce results. One of the most powerful points about the tools
in TES is that they have a long track record, and over the years have been proven to work.
In fact, independent research has shown that when educators use the tools found in TES,
their students often achieve immediate, dramatic improvements in learning.
Every component of the Teacher Effectiveness System has been
painstakingly engineered to make teachers more effective.

W H I T E PA P E R / 1 0
For example, data from a study measuring student performance among Title I school
districts found that students whose teachers use PD 360, the professional development
tool in TES, achieve significantly greater gains in standardized test scores than their peers
whose teachers do not:
Additionally, the data show that Title 1 students outperformed and outgrew their
respective districts when their teachers participated in PD 360, a remarkable finding with
great implications for educational success:
Schoolwide Title 1
Reading Percent Change
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
-2%
PD 360 Schools Districts
Change in Reading Prof+Adv:
Schoolwide Title 1
5%
4%
3%
2%
1%
0%
Year 1 Year 2
PD 360 Schools
Districts
Educators using PD 360 raised school-wide student reading scores many times over in a single year.

W H I T E PA P E R / 1 1
As district achievement averages fell over the course of the school year, schools within
those districts that used PD 360 saw significant gains in student achievement.
To read other independent studies demonstrating the impact that TES is having on
student learning, visit http://www.schoolimprovement.com/research/independent-
research/422-Title-1-Schools/.
The best solution for increasing college preparedness among our students—even as
we continue to succeed in driving college enrollment—is to become more effective at
teaching them. No amount of funding, community involvement, or parental support can
replace a truly effective teacher. If teacher effectiveness is a goal of your school or district,
then begin improving your teacher development efforts by visiting
http://www.schoolimprovement.com/teacher-effectiveness-system/ to receive a free 30-
day trial of the Teacher Effectiveness System.
Schoolwide Title 1
Math Percent Change
12%
9%
6%
3%
0%
-3%
-6%
PD 360 Schools Districts
Change in Reading Prof+Adv:
Schoolwide Title 1
9%
6%
3%
0%
-3%
-6%
Year 1 Year 2
PD 360 Schools
Districts

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