Making Coaching Matter

"Chasing improvement, districts and schools count on coaching to promote individual learning and organizational change. Coaching is currently a popular-and multifaceted-instrument for educational improvement. Across the U.S., many types of coaches engage in many types of work with teachers as well as leaders. But coaching is often loosely defined, weakly supported, and, ultimately, underutilized. There remain misconceptions about the goals of coaching, what coaching involves, and how coaching aligns with reform efforts. As a consequence, the promise of coaching has not been fully realized. This book grapples with these issues by advancing a new, coherent framing of coaching as a lever for strategic, equitable improvement. Bridging research, theory, policy, and practice, this book explains how to make coaching matter. Specifically, it offers insights so that educational reformers and leaders can strengthen the structures and activities of coaching by weaving them with the improvement strategy and centering equity. The book illuminates and illustrates how to assemble infrastructure and create conditions so that coaching advances change in robust, sustaining, and equitable ways. In particular, it highlights the role of: leaders' clear framing of coaching, equity, and strategy; professional learning opportunities on coaching; and continuous improvement to refine coaching"--