DC Public Schools Office of Teacher Human Capital

The DC Public Schools' Office of Teacher Human Capital is at the center of many of the Chancellor’s most important reforms, which focus on what has come to be recognized as the most critical school-based factor in driving student achievement – teacher quality. Under the direction of Jason Kamras, the office works toward the goal of having a highly effective teacher in every DCPS classroom by 2012 through a range of initiatives spanning teacher recruitment, selection, compensation, evaluation, recognition, and retention. In the 2009-2010 school year, DCPS implemented a groundbreaking new teacher evaluation system, IMPACT, which utilizes observational ratings of teachers by both administrators and third-party expert teachers, Master Educators, in combination with a measure of student achievement growth and several other measures of performance.