Pittsburgh Public Schools

Pittsburgh Public Schools Leads the National Effort To Empower Effective Teachers

Pittsburgh Public Schools recognizes that teacher effectiveness is the most important school-based factor for determining student success. With this in mind, the District is in the third year of a comprehensive reform effort dedicated to understanding the effectiveness of Pittsburgh’s teaching workforce, and using this information to drive professional growth, improve support to teachers and differentiate professional development, offer effective teachers new promotional roles and recognition opportunities, make evaluation and tenure more meaningful, and more.

The District’s comprehensive approach to improving teacher effectiveness also includes efforts to improve teaching and learning environments, upgrade IT and data systems, and more.

Through a uniquely collaborative approach to implementing these reforms, Pittsburgh is empowering teachers, and demonstrating that school districts and teachers unions can work together to achieve meaningful reform.

· The District is currently in the third year of implementing its Empowering Effective Teachers plan. Highlights include the collaborative implementation of a new professional growth and evaluation system called RISE, and the ratification of a five-year collective bargaining agreement centered on advancing the teaching profession in a way that is aligned with improving student achievement.

· More than $90 million in targeted supplemental funds is enabling this effort over six and a half years, including a comprehensive partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

· Pittsburgh’s work to empower effective teachers builds on a strong foundation established through the District’s Excellence for All reform agenda, and is dedicated to preparing students to benefit from the incredible access to higher education afforded to all PPS students by The Pittsburgh Promise®.

With The Pittsburgh Promise®, the momentum established through Excellence for All, pioneering work on teacher effectiveness, and some of the best teachers and administrators anywhere, Pittsburgh Public Schools is poised to drive to the core of the issues that have held back public education. The nation is watching to see if this kind of transformational change can be achieved by an urban school district.

Consider applying for employment opportunities with Pittsburgh Public Schools to contribute to the success of this complex and groundbreaking work.