Officials say Iowa’s annual 157-million-dollar investment in a teacher improvement program is paying dividends in teacher retention and job satisfaction, but student test scores are not yet rising. Ryan Wise, director of the Iowa Deparment of Education, says more than nine-thousand Iowa teachers are getting bonuses to serve as mentors or “coaches” to other teachers in their school district.
Wise says most educators see improvement in the professional environment in their school building and there are some gains in student test scores in individual school districts.
The state-funded teacher improvement program was phased in over three years. The 2016-2017 school year was the first time all 333 Iowa school districts were involved.
