Project Aims to Improve H.R. Systems in Big Districts

Two longtime education experts have launched an organization to push for transforming how the nation’s largest school districts recruit and groom the teaching and school leadership talent that they argue is key to improving student achievement.

Called Strategic Management of Human Capital , the organization was unveiled June 11 by Allan R. Odden, the director of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, or CPRE, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and James A. Kelly, the founding president of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The two will co-direct what they call an “action project,” which will be run out of the CPRE office in Madison.

The group’s chief focus will be on developing and advocating strategies, common in the private sector, to overhaul decades-old systems for hiring teachers, principals, and other leaders in the 100 largest school districts. Without recruiting the best talent and training people so their performance supports a school’s or district’s academic-improvement strategy, student achievement will stay stagnant, Mr. Odden...