In the spirit of ensuring excellent teaching for students everywhere, Learning Forward celebrates Public Schools Week 2025 by highlighting a few examples of innovation and change that have inspired us lately.
Maryland: Student math gains powered by professional learning
In a seed program in Montgomery County, students are reaping the benefits of a small team of educators collaborating to refine their approach to the district’s math curriculum. The results are striking—students in participating classrooms increased their proficiency scores on district tests from an average of 9% to 52% in just one marking period. Through professional learning focused on innovative instructional strategies and engaging in collaborative planning, these teachers are enhancing student engagement and achieving dramatic improvements in academic performance.
Learning Forward’s new white paper, “Maryland students make math gains, powered by educator professional learning,” dives into the work by a team of educators collaborating to refine their approach to the district’s math curriculum.
Such improvements are indicative of the power of targeted professional learning. The team of teachers involved in this Learning Forward Network have benefited from structured collaboration during professional learning communities (PLCs), where they meet regularly to dig into the curriculum from the perspective of students, discuss challenges, share data and learn from one another.
The spark for improving outcomes started with the district’s adoption of Illustrative Mathematics, but the professional learning is the fuel that helps teachers reach the goals for students. Although teachers recognized the potential of the curriculum right away, the structure and pace of it was new and different from what they had been doing. They needed time and support to understand the instructional shifts it requires and to practice new teaching strategies.
Delaware: A district strengthening its leadership team to make a bigger impact
Leaders in Delaware’s Brandywine School District are working on a plan to improve the consistency and quality of feedback to teachers. Because of the support they are receiving through their participation in a year-long professional learning network, the Brandywine team is empowered to expand their goal beyond improving teacher evaluation in one building to include sharing their learning across districts throughout the state. District leader Delethia McIntire cites “multiple positive outcomes” from participating in leadership team development, including the power of collaboration and getting feedback from others, which has helped the Brandywine team refine its problem of practice.
The Brandywine School District’s four-person team is participating in Leadership Team Institute 2024-25, a national multi-district learning network for school-based leadership teams who receive coaching, tools for continuous improvement, and other supports that help them assess their strengths and areas in need of improvement around the characteristics of high-performing teams, develop an actual problem of practice from something they want to improve at their school, and create a professional learning action plan that puts their learning into motion toward their goals.
The evidence base that underpins Learning Forward’s Leadership Team Institute includes Jason Grissom and colleagues’ groundbreaking 2021 research supported by The Wallace Foundation and national standards for educational leaders and educator professional learning, PSEL and Standards for Professional Learning, respectively.
Brandywine high school principal Kevin Palladinetti credits opportunities to learn from colleagues from across the country as key to accelerating the Brandywine team’s progress, because “all school leaders and a lot of school teams and districts are grappling with the same issues. No educator wants to waste their time.”
Missouri: A state-level commitment to attract, develop, and retain teachers and principals
Paul Katnik is a national resource on how states can effectively deal with educator shortages and retain top talent in classrooms and schools. A visible leader, Katnik has honed a strong voice for supporting the teaching profession as assistant commissioner of the Office of Educator Quality at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. As Missouri has made strategic, systemic investments in innovative programs designed to ensure a highly qualified, appropriately credentialed workforce, Katnik has championed the work, sharing details and data from programs like Missouri Leadership Development System, Beginning Teacher Assistance Program, Teacher Academy, Teacher Academy Graduate program.
Katnik’s articles on Missouri’s efforts are featured in The Learning Professional. His latest update on Missouri’s principals’ leadership development shared data on the positive outcomes from Missouri Leadership Development System, a highly successful system for building the capacity of principals in five leadership domains and at each phase of their careers. In 2024, MLDS seven-year data showed that the retention rates of MLDS principals exceeded the state’s average retention rates by over 10 percentage points each of those years. Katnik is also a strong supporter of federal Title II-A funds that help support the work.
