Recent research has confirmed what many educators have long suspected: teachers matter more to student learning than anything else schools do. Indeed, studies have found that having a high-quality teacher throughout elementary school can offset—or even eliminate—the disadvantage of a low socioeconomic background. Philanthropists serious about improving education in America, particularly among our neediest children, cannot ignore the importance of improving human capital.

Yet within the field of education, teachers and principals are insufficiently recruited, inadequately trained, inequitably distributed, and unfairly compensated. In response, reform-minded philanthropists and entrepreneurs are devising bold new ways to tackle the human capital challenge, especially in our nation’s most disadvantaged schools.

This guidebook provides philanthropists a solid grounding in the nature of the human capital challenge; it distills the best advice from pioneering donors in the field, while exploring the current landscape, most effective interventions, and opportunities for donors seeking to achieve an excellent teacher and principal for every child.

Read and download the full report, Achieving Teacher and Principal Excellence: A Guidebook for Donors from the Philanthropy Roundtable.