The Effective Practice Incentive Community (EPIC) was designed by New Leaders for New Schools (New Leaders) and our partners to identify and provide incentives to educators who drive significant student achievement gains in their urban schools. EPIC partners are:
- District of Columbia Public Schools
- Memphis City Schools
- National Consortium of Charter Schools
- Denver Public Schools
Funded primarily through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, EPIC is a five-year initiative, with the first two years (the 2006–07 and 2007–08 academic years) serving as pilot years. Based on the experience of the pilot, EPIC will hone the methodology and approach used in future years, making refinements as necessary to strengthen the initiative. The 2007–08 school year saw the successful pilot of a complete cycle of the EPIC program, in which more than 1,000 educators from 62 schools nationwide were awarded over $3 million.
Program Model
EPIC offers a unique approach to differential compensation for school leaders and practitioners. As in other models, EPIC uses student achievement gains in evaluating schools' and educators' performance. EPIC is unique in requiring educators from award-winning schools to work with New Leaders to identify and document the practices determined to be contributing to the student achievement gains in their schools. New Leaders and school leadership teams then collaborate to create professional development case studies around the effective practices, which you'll find on this EPIC website.
EPIC identifies "high gain" schools through a Value Added Model (VAM) created by New Leaders and Mathematica Policy Research (MPR). These schools partner with teams led by SchoolWorks (including New Leaders and partner district or charter school staff) to engage in a reflection-oriented process that includes a self-study as well as school visits to identify practices that the entire team determines have contributed to the student achievement gains.
When a central set of effective practices is identified, New Leaders and a team of case writers and producers work closely with the school's leadership team and teachers to document these practices for use by the broader education community. New Leaders then directs the development and production of the case studies and practice profiles and works with staff developers and subject-matter experts to create tools and resources for facilitators who will use the EPIC cases in professional development with principals, aspiring principals, leadership teams, and teachers.