Case Studies: Overview | Eagle County | ProComp | Q Comp | TAP
TAP™: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement was launched in 1999 by education reform pioneer and Milken Family Foundation Chairman Lowell Milken, along with others from the Milken Family Foundation, as a bold, comprehensive strategy to improve student achievement by maximizing teacher effectiveness. TAP is a system of incentives and supports that provides teachers with opportunities for professional growth and advancement, as well as student-centered accountability and professional compensation for all educators.
TAP has garnered much support from educators and policymakers and is currently impacting more than 7,500 teachers and 85,000 students. Research has found that TAP improves student achievement, increases teacher effectiveness, promotes a collegial and professional school environment, and reduces teacher turnover. Because of its broad-based support, results and high demand, TAP is now operated by the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET), a public charity.
TAP is based on four interrelated elements: multiple career paths, ongoing applied professional growth, instructionally focused accountability, and performance-based compensation.
Multiple Career Paths
Career ladder systems offer teachers opportunities for professional advancement that do not require leaving the classroom, but instead allow them to share their time between instruction and instructional leadership.
In TAP, teachers can be classroom teachers, known as "career teachers," or choose to advance along the continuum to become "mentor" or "master" teachers. Selected through a competitive process, master and mentor teachers join the principal on the school TAP Leadership Team, in which they help set annual goals and work with the faculty to ensure that these goals are met. To that end, they also conduct observations and evaluations and lead weekly professional development "cluster group" meetings.
In return for taking on leadership positions and working a longer school year, master and mentor teachers are rewarded with a stipend and held to a higher performance standard. Both master and mentor teachers receive a part-time release—mentor teachers are released from their teaching responsibilities approximately 30% of the time and master teachers for 70% of the time—in order to accommodate their leadership responsibilities.
Ongoing Applied Professional Growth
TAP schools offer professional development through a variety of structures including ongoing "cluster group" meetings, individual coaching and classroom support. TAP schools flexibly restructure their weekly school schedules to provide ample time during the regular school day for teachers to collaborate with each other. This structure provides teachers with a job-embedded, collaborative professional development system that is led by highly trained master and mentor teachers and that allows for ongoing support, feedback and continuous improvement. Teachers meet in "clusters"—organized by grade level or subject matter—to use data to identify trends in student learning, isolate areas needing improvement, and map out action steps to improve the quality of instruction and student learning.
Learn more about ongoing applied professional growth.
Instructionally Focused Accountability
Accountability is maintained both through qualitative observation-based measures of teacher effectiveness and through quantitative student-growth measures.
Teachers in TAP schools are held accountable for meeting the TAP Teaching Skills, Knowledge and Responsibilities Performance Standards. These standards were based on various prior research and practice, including the Framework for Teaching created by Charlotte Danielson and the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) guidelines. This standards-based rubric rates teachers on a five-point scale across 26 research-based indicators. Teacher observations and evaluations, both announced and unannounced, occur between four to six times a year and are conducted by the school TAP Leadership Team consisting of the principal, assistant principal, and master or mentor teachers. All observations are followed with post-conferences, and announced observations are preceded by a pre-conference. TAP has developed sophisticated protocols to guide these conversations.
Teachers are evaluated on both class-wide student learning results, if available, and school-wide learning results. It should be noted that in both cases, teachers and schools are evaluated not on achievement levels, but on the growth students accomplish over the course of an academic year. TAP schools are required to use a value-added model to calculate both teacher-level and school-level growth, although each school has the flexibility to select a model of its choice. Learn more about instructionally focused accountability.
Learn more about multiple career paths.
Performance-Based Compensation
The increased levels of accountability required in TAP schools are matched with strong support structures and with financial incentives that recognize and reward effective teaching. The TAP performance-based compensation system is most often in addition to the existing salary schedule. Further, teachers are offered opportunities for professional compensation that rewards high performance and leadership.
Classroom Teachers. TAP requires that all teachers in TAP schools are eligible for performance bonuses based on their classroom evaluations and class-wide and school-wide value-added results according to the following recommended breakdown:
- 50% on the average of multiple classroom evaluations based on the TAP Teaching Skills, Knowledge and Responsibilities Performance Standards
- 30% on individual classroom value-added results
- 20% on school-wide value-added results
Teachers Outside of Tested Subjects. Where individual classroom value-added results are not available—that is, for teachers in non-tested subjects or grade levels—the following breakdown is used:
- 50% on the average of multiple classroom evaluations based on the TAP Teaching Skills, Knowledge and Responsibilities Performance Standards
- 50% on school-wide achievement growth
Administrators. TAP encourages districts and schools to include administrators in the performance-based compensation system and are currently working to improve its administrator evaluation system. Administrator bonuses are allocated as follows:
- 50% on administrator evaluation or school review
- 50% on school-wide achievement growth
Learn more about performance-based compensation.
The following information provides details on how to implement TAP and ongoing support and funding of the system. Contact NIET staff to learn more.
- Ongoing support. The NIET and TAP teams provide ongoing support to schools and districts interested in implementing TAP. School leaders and staff members from NIET work in partnership throughout the planning, design and implementation phases of the system.
- Cost. The cost of TAP varies, ranging from $250 to $400 per student each year, depending on the infrastructure and funding already in place. NIET works with participating schools to better utilize existing funds to implement TAP. However, schools may need to seek out additional funding to support TAP. TAP schools are supported by a variety of funding sources, including private foundation grants, legislative appropriations, property tax levies, sales tax increases, general revenues from state budgets, district funds and federal dollars available through No Child Left Behind and the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF).
For additional information about TAP implementation, visit TAP's Frequently Asked Questions.
For general information about TAP and its impact on teachers and students across the country, download the brochure here.