The TAP System

TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement is a comprehensive K-12 school reform model that provides teachers with powerful opportunities for career advancement, ongoing professional development, a fair evaluation system and performance-based compensation. Currently impacting more than 275,000 educators and 2.75 million students across America, the TAP system is a proven system for increasing student achievement and teacher effectiveness.

Founded in 1999, TAP was conceived by Lowell Milken to significantly improve teacher recruitment, retention, practices, motivation and performance. A comprehensive school reform system, TAP provides teachers and administrators with powerful opportunities to pursue multiple career paths, receive ongoing daily-applied professional growth, participate in instructionally focused accountability and earn additional compensation and bonuses based on multiple measures of performance. This multi-tiered formula has resulted in higher levels of achievement among students and schools where TAP is implemented in comparison to their respective non-TAP counterparts.

Based on TAP’s rapid growth, strong results and high demand, Lowell created the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) in 2005 as an independent public charity to support and manage the TAP system nationally and to foster powerful teacher quality initiatives. NIET forges partnerships with schools, governments, corporations and foundations to ensure TAP’s effectiveness and sustainability in a diverse set of urban, rural and suburban schools across America.

NIET provides innovative services, support and solutions to schools, districts and states to improve educator effectiveness. Based on more than ten years of experience in teacher quality initiatives, the Best Practices Center works with states, districts and schools to design powerful systems for teacher evaluation, job-embedded professional development, career advancement opportunities, performance-based compensation, and teacher leadership in schools.

For more information on TAP visit its official website.