Coaching Without a Coach

How can cash-strapped schools empower educators at all levels to engage in coaching?

It seems ironic. At a time when coaching has become widely accepted as a way to improve teacher practice and student achievement, school districts across the United States are experiencing major funding cuts and eliminating coaching positions.

For the last decade, federal and state departments of education in the United States have promoted coaching in schools. Reading coaches were a prominent feature of the Reading First program when it began in 2002. As Reading First funds rolled out, it seemed that coaching had arrived. Yet nine years later, although the U.S. Department of Education continues to support job-embedded professional development like coaching,¹  money to pay coaches is evaporating fast.