The purpose of this handbook is to provide an outline of the requirements and responsibilities for state, district and school stakeholders in the state's accountability process established by the Education Accountability Act of 2009 (SB 09-163).
ProComp is an ambitious alternative teacher compensation system developed by Denver Public Schools (DPS) in cooperation with the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. This report summarizes a summative evaluation of ProComp conducted collaboratively by The Evaluation Center and the Buechner Institute for Governance at the University of Colorado Denver and the Center for Education Data and Research at the University of Washington. This report describes the implementation of various elements of ProComp and results of the analysis of the association of ProComp with student achievement and changes in the composition of the DPS workforce.
Title II, Part A (IIA) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) provides funding for district-based initiatives designed to improve the quality of teaching and leadership in schools. Title IIA funds may be used for a vast array of activities including high-quality professional development, recruitment and retention of effective educators, helping teachers become highly qualified, and class size reduction. However, emerging research on the different allowable activities suggests that some strategies have more impact on educator effectiveness, and ultimately on student learning, than others.
The Colorado Department of Education developed this resource guide to support schools and districts that engage external service providers as part of their school improvement process. A number of schools and districts are incorporating external expertise into their turnaround or transformation strategies with support from School Improvement Grants or Tiered Intervention Grant. Regardless of whether services are purchased with grant funds or per pupil revenue, spending public money requires the highest level of transparency and prudent decision-making when it comes to purchasing processes. This guide is designed to inform best practice when it comes to identifying potential providers, issuing a request for proposal based on identified needs, evaluating potential providers and their proposals, contracting with an external provider, and evaluating and monitoring the providers ongoing performance.
