The Urban Teacher Center, Baltimore, MD

Improve helped the Urban Teacher Center, an alternative teacher certification non-profit, develop an information technology plan based on stakeholder requirements and desired organizational goals and results. Project work included developing organizational performance metrics and dashboards for these metrics, identifying data requirements for a data warehouse and analytic system to assess and track progress towards goals, and identification of potential software applications in the areas of learning management systems, operational systems, recruiting applications, and office management software (e.g., calendaring, mail, storage). Interviewed employees to understand all aspects of the organization, define requirements, interviewing other teacher certification organizations and charter school management organizations to identify best practices, developing an inter-organizational data sharing strategy, conducting vendor interviews to understand current market offerings, estimating costs, and writing an implementation plan. Kirsten Mackler, Director of Research and Evaluation said of our work, “Many thanks to you both and your team. We are very pleased with the thoughtful, extensive and helpful work you’ve done. It’s moved us light years ahead not just in how we think about our data systems, but also informing us of how best to move forward. We appreciate your time and efforts and have enjoyed working with your team.” One of the founders, Jennifer Hall, said, “This work is intelligent and thoughtful.”