Our Areas of Work

  • Human Capital for Education

    In schools, nothing matters more than the quality of the teachers and leaders. When students have great teachers, they learn dramatically more than they do with less-effective instructors. When schools have great leaders, their students excel, even when they start behind...

    Yet too often, policies and management practices in K-12 education stand in the way of great teaching and leadership. Our work in the area of human capital focuses on policies and approaches to recruiting, selecting, evaluating, developing, compensating, and retaining high-performing teachers and leaders.

  • School Turnarounds

    Thousands of schools nationwide are failing to educate enough of their students effectively and are missing state and federal performance benchmarks. Many of these schools have failed to provide students with even a basic education for years. To respond to this challenge, education leaders need...

    ...better tools to turn their schools around. “Turnarounds” are widely used in other sectors to fix failing organizations. Public Impact has surveyed this cross-sector experience to generate resources that help schools, districts, and others implement successful turnarounds.

  • Charter Schools

    Charter schools are tuition-free, independently run public schools that operate free from many regulations imposed on district schools. In exchange, charter schools are held accountable for results. If executed well, the charter school sector has enormous potential...

    ...as illustrated by the growing number of charter schools achieving phenomenal results with disadvantaged students. If executed poorly, chartering can reproduce the same patterns of mediocrity and failure rampant in public education. Public Impact has deep experience informing charter policy, strengthening charter authorizing, and devising strategies to help the sector succeed.

  • More Topics

    Public Impact works in other areas that influence and guide public education policy and management including school finance, philanthropy, special populations, and technology in education.

Public Impact is a national education policy and management consulting firm based in Chapel Hill, N.C. We are a team of researchers, thought leaders, tool-builders, and on-the-ground consultants who help education leaders and policymakers improve student learning in K-12 education.

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New From Public Impact

  • Performance Guarantees - Enabling Innovation
    Report explores the use of performance guarantees in the education sector to speed the rate of reform in our schools.

  • Charter School Funding - Inequity Persists
    Report examines revenue data to compare spending differences in charter versus district schools.

  • Charter Schools in Catholic Schools - Miami
    Case study explores the successful Miami Archdiocesan effort to lease facilities to eight charter schools.

  • Shooting for Stars - Retaining high performers
    Cross-sector lessons on retaining the best and how those lessons apply to keeping great teachers

  • Lessons from Singapore - Effective teacher evaluation
    Singapore’s competency-based system to evaluate, develop, and reward teachers

  • Opportunity at the Top - Great teachers for all
    How America's best teachers could close the gaps, raise the bar, and keep our nation great

  • Free to Lead - Charter autonomies that matter most
    Report highlights seven autonomies that have made a difference in highly successful charter schools

  • Charter School Autonomy - A half-broken promise
    Report finds many state laws and charter contracts don’t offer the promised flexibility

  • Turnaround Debate - How to fix failing schools?
    Bryan Hassel and Andy Smarick square off over how the nation should address chronically failing schools

  • Fund the Student - A new system for Rhode Island
    Report calls for K-12 dollars in the Ocean State to follow children to the public schools they attend.

  • Teacher Effectiveness - How should states define it?
    Presentation addresses key issues for state policymakers as they define teacher effectiveness

  • The Tab - Blueprint to revamp CT school funding
    Report offers blueprint for transforming the way Connecticut funds its public schools

  • 3X for All - Extending the reach of education's best
    What if we could reach dramatically more children with the great teachers we already have?