Introduction to the Evaluation of the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching (IP). Working Paper WR-1034-BMGF

On November 19, 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would invest $290 million to support effective teaching as a means to ensure all students receive the education they need to succeed in high school and beyond. The foundation made six-year grants to support four Intensive Partnership for Effective Teaching (IP) sites that have developed plans to improve teacher effectiveness. Each site has obtained commitments from local organizations to match the foundation grants. Each site has embarked on efforts to develop its own measure of teacher effectiveness and use the measure to manage its teacher workforce in more strategic ways. A team from the RAND Corporation and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) was chosen to conduct a broad, longitudinal evaluation of these strategic human resource (HR) reforms. Beginning in 2010-11 and continuing through 2015-16, RAND/AIR is collecting information annually from the IP sites to explore how reforms are being implemented and to examine the impact of the IP reforms on students and teachers. [Paper presented as part of the Symposium "Improving Teacher Human Capital Management: Interim Findings from the Evaluation of the Intensive Partnership Sites".]