Most teachers improve quickly early in their careers—but research shows that growth often levels off, even with continued professional development. In this post, we share key takeaways from Dr. Dan Goldhaber’s conversation on The Best of Us podcast, highlighting what truly drives sustained teacher growth and how district leaders can build systems that support it.

The final month of school isn’t just about wrapping up—it’s about setting up. District leaders who act now can turn reflection into strategy and momentum into meaningful growth.

As district leaders plan for the year ahead, staffing challenges are more than a logistical hurdle—they’re a defining factor for student success. High rates of teacher and principal turnover are reshaping what it takes to build strong, sustainable school communities.

Building a lasting culture of instructional coaching doesn’t happen overnight. In Fairfax County Public Schools, it took years of intentional partnership, clear vision, and a belief that every educator deserves a partner in their growth.

Budget cuts are never easy—especially when they impact the tools and systems that support teaching and learning. But even in lean years, district leaders can make strategic decisions that keep progress moving forward.

Most coaching programs focus on strategies and surface-level fixes—but that’s not what drives lasting change. Transformational coaching expert Elena Aguilar explains why real impact starts with shifting beliefs, not just behaviors.

Strategic planning doesn’t pause just because your team is at capacity — but pushing forward without space to think can lead to burnout or misalignment. Here’s how to make meaningful, system-level progress even when time and bandwidth are in short supply.

You can have high attendance at every PD session and still miss the mark. Without meaningful feedback from teachers, it’s nearly impossible to know what’s resonating, what’s falling short, or how to improve. So why are feedback rates so stubbornly low—and what can districts do about it?

Frequent leadership changes and district restructuring can derail professional learning efforts by disrupting data collection and evaluation. To protect the impact of coaching and professional development, school systems need a resilient data strategy that endures through transition.

Instructional coaching has the power to transform teaching and learning, but its impact depends on how well it is structured and supported. In a conversation with coaching expert Diane Sweeney, we explored the key strategies that help coaches build strong partnerships, create intentional plans, and drive meaningful student growth.

How can school leaders ensure that professional learning truly impacts student success? In a recent episode of The Best of Us, education expert Dr. Thomas Guskey shared his five-level evaluation model and key insights on how districts can design professional learning that drives meaningful change.

District leaders don’t need more initiatives—they need sharper focus, clearer communication, and consistent follow-through to drive real impact.

Missy Testerman, the 2024 National Teacher of the Year, believes that the most effective school improvement comes from empowering educators at every level. In a recent conversation, she shared how district leaders can foster bottom-up leadership by creating structures that amplify teacher voices and drive meaningful change.

In today's fast-paced education landscape, a robust coaching program can unlock teachers' potential and transform student outcomes. Jim Knight's seven essential factors offer a concise roadmap for building a coaching framework that truly makes a difference.

Equity in education isn’t just about diversifying the workforce—it’s about creating environments where all educators can thrive. Sharif El-Mekki and Lisa Lachlan dive into actionable strategies for school leaders to address systemic barriers and support educators of color. Here’s how you can start making a meaningful impact in your district.

It’s inarguable that teachers are experts on what their students need. So how can school administrators leverage that expertise to make professional learning collaborative rather than top-down?

Data isn’t just numbers on a spreadsheet—it’s a tool to help educators ask better questions, spot meaningful patterns, and make smarter decisions. Dr. Jim Knight shares how thinking like a data scientist can empower schools to uncover insights and create lasting change. Here’s how you can apply his advice with three actionable tips.

Joellen Killion, a senior advisor of Learning Forward and author of “Elevate School-Based Professional Learning,” highlights the transformative potential of collaborative professional learning for educators. Instead of the traditional, top-down approach, Killion calls for professional development to be a shared responsibility, empowering teachers as active participants in their growth. She believes that when teachers collaborate, they leverage their collective expertise, making learning more relevant and impactful.

When school leaders deepen their understanding of different subjects, it can prove a powerful lever to giving teachers the feedback they deserve and desire. Today, we’ll discuss ways to support teachers in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) area.

Without clear purpose and goals, PLCs can devolve into unproductive venting sessions that waste time and resources, create disillusionment, and decrease teacher morale. So how do districts set their PLCs up for success? Instructional coaches. An instructional coach can be a powerful asset to get the PLC off the ground and provide ongoing support for its practice, just like they would an individual teacher. Let’s explore how one coach might help a whole PLC group reach its full potential:

The data is clear: instructional coaching has a strong and quantifiable impact on teacher practice and student outcomes. But the same data shows that larger programs have diminishing returns. So how do modern school districts scale up their programs while keeping a focus on quality?

Think you're a true PD data nerd? Measure up against our top 10 signs.

Performance assessment systems have a reputation for being rigid and intimidating, largely because of a focus on compliance over growth. But as the pandemic upended teaching and learning environments, many states have hit the pause button on performance reviews and begun to rethink their role.

We get it! Starting your first coaching cycle can be overwhelming. The most important thing to remember is to start small. Read about the importance of Coaching Cycles, their impact on transferring professional development into the classroom, and how to get started with replicable success.

As education leaders, how do we retain our experienced teachers and leverage their support for new teachers? With the prospect of a “great resignation” — and the associated costs to replace them — well documented, that question has never been more important.

This is the second post in a series on a framework for creating a school district culture that increases educator growth and retention. In this post, we’ll share specific strategies to help you create a roadmap to increased educator growth and career satisfaction in your district.

This is the first post in a series exploring a framework for creating school district staff cultures that increase educator growth and retention. We’ll share an overview of the framework and provide some practical tips for how you can move your district toward a path of both high performance and high support.

Study after study shows that educator quality is the most impactful school-based factor in student outcomes — so how do districts create environments where teachers are professionally fulfilled, directly supported, and continuously growing in their practice?

Taking charge of a classroom for the first time is no small task. So how to ensure new teacher induction programs are working across the district? Good data practices that keep administrators informed, coaches aligned, and educators clear on their next steps.

Any work that deals with attitudinal change like unconscious bias must be embedded so it’s front-of-mind and continuously active. This means applying the same best practices found in any other PD intervention. Explore how to evaluate anti-racist teacher PD, and ensure that the training is translating into classroom practice.

Recent changes to federal education funding structures like Title II, the CARES Act, and the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund — among others — mean that these dollars are now available to invest in long-term PD solutions for continuous improvement.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 is set to provide significant boosts to available K-12 federal funds. Find out what the new funding means for K-12 districts and professional learning teams.

Continuous improvement — the art of using data to decide goals, identify the paths to get there, evaluate the resulting change, and make adjustments to the next cycle — is the key to improving instructional practice. But why? And, more importantly, how?

Coach and mentor time is precious—and expensive. Though we know coaching can change teacher practice, quality of time matters. It’s an administrator’s job to understand what’s happening at scale in order to tailor instructional support for maximum impact and demonstrate the program’s outcomes.

With an uncertain school year ahead and funds stretched tight by COVID-19, many education leaders are scrambling to find the budget for professional learning supports. Recent changes to federal education funding structures like Title II and the CARES Act mean that these dollars are now available to invest in long-term PD solutions for continuous improvement.

Virtual walkthroughs can provide clear, actionable feedback about how professional learning efforts are translating into practice. Check out our top 7 tips for creating a walkthrough program in your district’s online classrooms — or download the free guide of practical look-fors adapted from the National Standards for Quality Online Teaching.

Highlights from our conversation with McREL International and Lubbock Independent School District, exploring how research and practice can inform using data to hone summer PD, focus on meeting individual needs, and drive towards change in practice.

We talked district strategy, coach-teacher communication, and much more in a live Q&A with Jim Knight of the Instructional Coaching Group and Diane Lauer of St. Vrain Valley Schools. Read on for highlights on adapting instructional coaching to a virtual context.

Bright-shiny-object syndrome frustrates teachers and administrators alike. But with new research constantly bubbling to the surface, the trick is understanding where innovation can inform and improve the best practices we already know work. We sat down with Diane Lauer, Chief Academic Officer at St. Vrain Valley Schools, for a chat on where the next steps are and how they connect to what we've been doing all along.

The story of the last decade of professional learning has been around the idea of “evidence for practice.” With ESSA’s definition of professional learning, it’s clear that programs have to be linked to research that shows impact on students. But choosing a research-backed framework is the easy part. Translating it into practice — also known as “implementing with fidelity” — is a taller order. Find out how two real-life practitioners optimize these drivers in a school district setting, track implementation success in real time, and understand what works and why.

A good foundation is critical to your professional learning plan's success — but all the value alignment, calendar coordination and guiding philosophy in the world won’t guarantee a good outcome. Without clear intention for what the final product will actually do, the people it's serving won’t be able to make sense of the “why do we have this?,” let alone the “how do we use this?” Today: simplifying data presentations for accessibility, understanding and buy-in.

The story of the last decade of professional learning has been around the idea of “evidence for practice.” With ESSA’s definition of professional learning, it’s clear that programs have to be linked to research that shows impact on students. But choosing a research-backed framework is the easy part. Translating it into practice — also known as “implementing with fidelity” — is a taller order. Find out how two real-life practitioners optimize these drivers in a school district setting, track implementation success in real time, and understand what works and why.

A good foundation is critical to your professional learning plan's success — but all the value alignment, calendar coordination and guiding philosophy in the world won’t guarantee a good outcome. Without clear intention for what the final product will actually do, the people it's serving won’t be able to make sense of the “why do we have this?,” let alone the “how do we use this?” Today: simplifying data presentations for accessibility, understanding and buy-in.

If you're trying to build a habit among a group of people — like consistently and thoroughly responding to feedback surveys, for example — the trick is to simplify and streamline wherever possible, for both the audience and yourself. Today in our Actionable Data series: running large-scale data projects while respecting your teachers' time — and your own.

Short, intermediate and long-term change can look very different in both pace and types of indicator — not to mention the the complex task of balancing the existing demands of the school year with your program's data needs. Let’s explore how to build robust yet flexible calendars for data accountability:

Professional development feedback gets a bad rap. District leaders and PD directors often consider it subjective and shallow, focusing on verifiable metrics instead: hours clocked, attendances logged and sessions completed. But participant feedback can be an untapped treasure trove of actionable data, and innovative PD leaders are using it to formatively evaluate programs for in-the-moment success. We recently talked to the directors of two Texas districts about the ways they’re listening to — and using — post-PD feedback.

How do you balance maintaining compliance, hitting district goals, and doing the real work of inspiring your teacher-leaders to achieve? It’s not by defaulting to the safety of easily-measurable but shallow metrics — it’s by sharpening the focus of the qualitative changes.

When we talk about impact in K-12 education, the conversation inevitably turns to outcome data (like student test scores). And it's true that the ultimate accountability is to our students. But what about the work that comes between? What if there were a hundred tiny invisible factors feeding into those outcomes? What if there were a way to identify, measure, and align them from the start?

Sample question bank for feedback on teacher professional development, plus a guide to getting the most out of your participants' comments.

Our staff came together after Learning Forward's 2018 Annual Conference to sum up five of our biggest takeaways from conversations, sessions, and activity happening in Dallas. What trends resonate with your team?

How DO district and school leaders refresh professional learning communities (PLCs) mid-year? The final part of this three-part series focuses on how districts create alignment between high-profile district priorities and the everyday issues being surfaced in PLCs.

How DO district and school leaders refresh professional learning communities (PLCs) mid-year? Part Two of this three-part series focuses on how districts assess the impact of their PLCs and gather the information needed to make adjustments mid-year.

Three education leaders explore one big, essential question: How DO district and school leaders refresh professional learning communities (PLCs) mid-year? Part One of this three-part series focuses on how innovative districts are building and maximizing time for PLCs within limited school days.

There is no better data source than directly observing the learning process in action. Practical evidence is critical for supporting teachers' growth and understanding what's happening across your school or district.

As a company of facilitators, practitioners and technologists, KickUp is excited to launch a panel style webinar series to create a conversation and address these substantive concerns surrounding the efficacy of professional learning in K-12 education.

When Lorenzo Rizzo returned to Belton School District--the school district he’d once attended as a student--to become their new Assistant Superintendent of School Improvement, he wanted to build a culture in which professional learning was explicitly aligned to strategic priorities. To do so, he needed to capture data that would help his team assess progress. The main challenge? Shifting the culture to embrace this data required a thoughtful approach designed to build trust.

Ken Rocha, Director of Secondary Education at Pleasanton Unified School District in California, needed to select a new ELA curriculum that reflected 21st-century learning and district-wide priorities. In addition to making the right decision, he also needed to make sure the process was transparent and resulted in a group decision that reflected student, teacher, parent and community voices.

While many administrators know they want to promote a data-informed culture, it’s hard to know how to put this into practice beyond scheduled data meetings. That's why we’ve compiled a number of tips and tricks for incorporating professional development data into planning, decision-making, and implementation.

Drafting a professional learning plan is a critical step for districts who want to set their teachers up for success. We've gathered resources for making sure your plan is coherent and actionable, including tips from two Missouri district leaders.

Amy Kines, founder of Ready Aim Teach, wasn't satisfied with simply knowing that attendees liked her professional learning workshops; she wanted to know what came after. Were teachers implementing their new practices? With KickUp's help, she set out to determine what impact her interventions had weeks after the workshop.

The expression "practice makes perfect" depends on the value of that practice. Tom Arnett, Research Fellow at the Christensen Institute, argues that good practice must be feedback-informed. In an exclusive interview, Tom dives into "purposeful practice" and gives an example of a program that's doing it right.

Guest contributor, James Noonan, Ed.D., emphasizes the importance of making space for uncertainty in schools. He discusses how having an intellectually safe community of practice where teachers could experiment with their ideas and be frank about their dilemmas, as well as having facilitators who modeled learning through their leadership, are important elements that contribute to a teacher's learning experience.

In an exclusive interview, Tom Arnett discusses the need to adopt an outcomes-driven mindset and measure change in teacher practice.

Tom Arnett, Research Fellow at the Christensen Institute, speaks about the evolution of professional development. He discusses how districts are beginning to personalize professional development, moving away from the “1.0 version of PD” that tries to be one-size-fits-all and lacks relevancy to all teachers.

We interviewed Tom Arnett, Research Fellow at the Christensen Institute about his perspective regarding high quality professional learning.  He explains that effective professional development has less to do with a specific practice and everything to do with being results-driven.

Listen to Lisa Highfill discuss how as a PD facilitator, she must not stand in the front of the room and impart knowledge, but rather work collaboratively with her teachers, support them as they actively engage with new content, and continue to listen.

Lisa Highfill reflects on how she designed and facilitated personalized professional learning based on her teachers’ individual needs, abilities, and interests.  This personalized approach is characterized by teachers who are invested in their growth and development.

We interviewed Lisa Highfill, Instructional Technology Coach at Pleasanton Unified School District, about the steps she and her colleagues have taken to provide differentiated and active professional learning for their teachers.  She discusses the importance of building trust with teachers by truly listening to their needs and creating learning opportunities that feel relevant and meaningful.

How do we know whether professional learning is actually working? Which supports are making an impact on teachers and students, and which might we want to walk away from? In this podcast with Daniel Bauer, KickUp CEO Jeremy Rogoff explores the common challenges that school leaders face while making critical decisions about how to most effectively allocate their professional learning resources.

We know that high quality support for teachers is game-changing for our students, yet making it a priority can be difficult. Listen in as KickUp CEO Jeremy Rogoff reflects on his own experience as a teacher, noting that while educators and administrators would like to devote time, thought, and energy to professional development, the daily realities of a K12 school district can often prevent that from happening.

KickUp's Co-founder and CEO, Jeremy Rogoff speaks with Daniel Bauer on Better Leaders Better Schools, a podcast for the school leader community. Listen in as Jeremy discusses his own leadership style, the importance of clear communication, and a few of the lessons he has learned while building a startup.

KickUp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Rogoff spent time with Dr. Rod Berger ASCD annual conference, where the two discussed how KickUp helps school districts collect ongoing data from teachers as a way to make informed decisions about professional learning.