Challenge & Solution

Nothing has a bigger impact on students’ prospects in school than a high quality teacher. In fact, research has indicated that a low income child who has a high quality teacher five years in a row will have learning gains, on average, high enough to completely eliminate the achievement gap with their more affluent peers. There is also an emerging consensus that an effective school leader has a strong determining factor on children’s school experience. Developing effective teachers and school leadership is why we started the Reach Institute and remains the central focus of our work.

How teacher and leadership candidates are trained can make all the difference in developing teachers and school leaders with the knowledge and skills to propel their students ahead. Particularly for high-needs students, a successful school experience should not be left to chance.

Successful urban schools have something in common:
Uncommon teachers and school leaders.

At Reach, we’re making uncommon teachers and leaders commonplace.

We develop and support educators differently. We know that CA urban schools are under-resourced, and to overcome this, every teacher and supervisor needs to play a leadership role and collaborate as a team, yet a traditional teacher’s or administrator’s training program typically offers a fragmented experience, detached from their school or peers’ reality.

Reach prepares and guides teachers and school leaders to act as leaders in their classrooms, teaching teams and schools. Conventional teacher and administrator training programs often engage candidates in simulations or learning circumstances that are nothing like what they experience in their daily work, thus robbing them of precious time with their students, and their own real-time improvement.

Reach connects research and practice, including job-embedded professional development in every seminar, coaching session, and assignment, making teachers and school leaders more effective right away. Potentially great teachers and school leaders view credentialing requirements and training either as meaningless hoops to jump through, or worse, as a deterrent that may cause them to choose a different path altogether.