Large-Scale Reform for a Large School District

Chicago Public Schools, the nation's third largest school district, is one of the places where TAP is helping to attract and retain talent in some of its highest-need schools.  With over 400,000 students, and nearly 85 percent coming from low-income families, former Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan-now U.S. Education Secretary-brought TAP to some of the city's high-need schools to build strong teaching capacity where it was needed most.

Thinking Outside the Box

After just two years, TAP has changed the way educators are approaching instruction. In TAP schools, in addition to career (or classroom) teachers, master teachers and mentor teachers are part of the structure to coach teachers, facilitate strong ongoing professional development and along with the principal, contribute to the overall instructional leadership of the school.  For the first time, teachers are working together weekly in "cluster groups" led by master and mentor teachers to meet, plan and discuss the best strategies to meet individual student needs.

Michelle Corpus, master teacher at Multicultural Arts High, attributes TAP's career path and development for helping them improve even more:

"TAP can really reinvigorate your career. TAP is wonderful to catapult teachers out of the 'box,' especially inner-city public school teachers.  We are not made from the same mold.  We are constantly changing and learning, and want the best for our kids."

What's more, the opportunity of having mentor and master teachers to strengthen instruction as a whole has retained teachers in these schools.

Denise Makowski, master teacher at Cameron Elementary, summed up TAP's impact: "For the first time this year we only had two teachers leave, and it was because they were going out of state.  Cameron has never had that before the last couple of years.  TAP has brought cohesiveness and a lot of energy to our school.  We are all talking about the same thing: good instruction."

source: www.tapsystem.org

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