EDUCATION
COMPENSATION
REFORM
PERFORMANCE
BASED COMPENSATION
STANDARD
BEARER
SCHOOLS
PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
ORGANIZATIONAL
ASSESSMENT SURVEYS STUDENT
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
INSTITUTE FOR COMPENSATION REFORM AND STUDENT LEARNING
Community Training and Assistance Center (CTAC) works to enable urban school systems to function systematically on behalf of all children by providing technical assistance, conducting research and evaluation, and supporting public policy initiatives.
Technical
Assistance
CTAC’s on-site assistance supports the systemic
reform of urban school districts serving diverse and at-risk
populations. CTAC’s core initiatives build the capacity of
school districts, unions and states to analyze the conditions that help
or hinder performance, find their causes, and create and implement
improvement strategies, which address those causes and increase student
achievement. Working on site with teachers, parents, principals,
students, administrators, boards of education, business and community
leaders – as well as with state education authorities
–
CTAC conducts capacity-building projects that are comprehensive and
improve student achievement through accountability, site and district
planning, and strategic management.
CTAC has assisted diverse school systems such as Albuquerque, New Mexico, Austin, Texas, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, Christina, Delaware, Cleveland, Ohio, Decatur, Illinois, Denver, Colorado, Duval County, Florida, Jackson, Mississippi, Los Angeles and Santa Clara Counties in California; Newark, New Jersey, Salt Lake City, Utah, Seattle, Washington and those in many other parts of the country. CTAC has also provided training to leadership teams from more than 40 state departments of education.
Research
and
Evaluation
CTAC conducts research studies addressing critical issues in
education, in order to improve
practice and inform decisions at the local, state, and national levels.
Recent studies have examined the impact of performance pay for
teachers, professional
development for teachers, district-wide reform initiatives, state
takeovers of urban school districts, federally approved school reform
models, site-based management of schools, and nonprofit
capacity.
Public
Policy
In addition to framing and examining public policy issues, CTAC has
promoted public policy improvements at the state and national levels
based on the needs of urban children and families by sponsoring special
initiatives. For example, CTAC established the National Urban Reform
Network, a broad-based collaboration of urban school districts and
communities that combined forces to inform national public policy in
elementary and secondary education.
