Building Capacity for Education Reform

Discussions of capacity should be broadened to include factors such as the relationships between individual, or teacher, capacity and the abilities of schools, and districts to accomplish standards-based, or systemic, reform. This brief provides a framework for thinking about capacity and suggests ways that systemic reform strategies could help increase capacity. It also describes how two such strategies - professional development and state assessment - were used to enhance educational capacity in states examined by CPRE.