Blog posts by: Deirdre Smith

The Teacher and School Leader Incentive program, known as TSL, has long been the federal government’s primary vehicle for pushing that work forward. It is a competitive grant designed to help state and local education agencies redesign how they manage their educator workforce and how they compensate educators, and the 2026 competition adds something that hasn’t been there before: For the first time, TSL explicitly incentivizes strategic school staffing as a design principle for how those systems are built.

Early lessons from ITEL AZ demonstrate how educator teams and high-quality instructional materials can work together to strengthen grade-level instruction.

If you’re interested in how schools are redesigning teaching through team-based models, the Strategic School Staffing Summit is the easiest way to see what’s happening across the country without leaving your desk. Learn more about the four content tracks and get a preview of who will be presenting.

Every year, the Strategic School Staffing Summit brings together hundreds of educators, leaders, policymakers and advocates who are rethinking how schools are staffed. The Call for Proposals to present at the Summit is now open.

The Strategic School Staffing Summit hosted by the Next Education Workforce™ is inviting proposals for live, virtual sessions on Feb. 7–8, 2024.