Smarter School Spending Overview

District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) has been widely heralded in recent years as one of the nation’s fastest-improving urban public school districts. Most coverage has focused on the district’s strong and stable leadership and its sustained focus on educator effectiveness.

Five years ago, Casals Elementary School in Chicago was struggling to produce positive results for their students—so the school began working with the Academy of Urban School Leadership (AUSL) to turnaround their trajectory and improve how they served their students, teachers, and entire school community.

About seven years ago, Denver Public Schools set out to improve the way it provided teachers with opportunities to boost their leadership capacities.