TAP's Elements TAP Outcomes National Louisiana South Carolina Texas Legislation Understanding Value-Added Teacher Quality Resources The Working Group on Teacher Quality
Highlights of TAP Results - National
TAP Reaches High-Need Schools
TAP has grown steadily each year in the number of participating schools. By far most of this nationwide growth has come from the participation of high-need schools. As shown in this graph, nearly 88% of TAP schools in 2008-2009 are high-need schools.
TAP Increases Student Achievement
At 78% of TAP schools nationwide, students gain a full year or more of achievement growth during one year of schooling. This high performance has remained stable over several years even while the number of schools included in the statistic (especially the number of schools serving higher-need communities) has expanded.
According to nationwide data, TAP teachers on average show higher student achievement growth than non-TAP teachers. And on average, more TAP schools outperform similar non-TAP schools in producing an average year's growth or more in both reading and math achievement.
TAP Promotes the Continuous Improvement of Teacher Effectiveness
Improving teacher effectiveness is the cornerstone of TAP. Teacher leaders in TAP schools undergo extensive training and receive ongoing support from national TAP training staff as well as state TAP support staff. These teacher leaders, in turn, provide daily, embedded support for teachers in their schools through cluster groups, mentoring, team-teaching and modeling effective instructional strategies.
TAP teachers are observed several times a year by multiple trained observers. Results show that teachers make steady improvement in observed skills during the course of the school year.
TAP Attracts Talented Teachers to High-Need Schools
TAP's career opportunities and performance bonuses attract outstanding teachers from higher-income schools to high-need schools, reversing the usual flow of effective teachers from lower to higher achieving schools. In some high-need districts, 75% of TAP master and mentor teachers have come from more affluent schools to take these positions. TAP principals consistently report that it is easier for them to recruit quality teachers than it was prior to implementing TAP.
TAP is appealing to teachers who know they can be effective in an environment of collegial support and accountability.
TAP Reduces Turnover – Especially Among Effective Teachers
TAP makes it attractive for effective teachers to stay at a school, rather than leave the school or leave the teaching profession. Nearly 70% of TAP principals report that TAP has helped retain effective teachers in their schools. These effects are found in a growing population of TAP schools that serve high-need students, historically the schools that are hardest to staff. And in places like South Carolina where teacher turnover rates were previously above 30% per year, since TAP implementation they have been reduced to less than 10% per year.
TAP Promotes High Levels of Collegiality and Accountability
According to the TAP national survey of teacher attitudes, the level of support for TAP's elements, which include teacher accountability and performance-based compensation, is high and increasing with each additional year of TAP implementation. Additionally, in 2008, 94% of TAP teachers agreed or strongly agreed that TAP has created collegiality within their schools.
These results show that when combined with professional growth in an applied, collaborative setting, accountability and performance-based compensation are compatible with collegiality. Whatever concerns teachers have over the shift in culture to performance-based compensation and accountability are tempered by the cluster groups that naturally facilitate collegiality.
TAP in the News - Nationwide
Select Stories
Grading the Graders...and Paying Them for the Results
Patt Morrison
(audio)
KPCC (NPR)
(Pasadena, CA)
April 17, 2009
TAP: More Than Performance Pay
Education Week
April 01, 2009
How to Make Great Teachers
TIME Magazine
February 25, 2008
Tom Brown, Principal, Holston Middle School, Knoxville, Tennessee
". . . The quality of this year's new teachers to Holston is far superior from candidates that I have interviewed before. We have stepped onto an entirely different playing field."