7:56 a.m., Sept. 28, 2009----On Wednesday, Oct. 7, Delaware will welcome Jim Kelly, an expert in the field of human capital who has an extensive background in education policy and research.

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Kelly was founding president of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and currently serves as co-director of Strategic Management of Human Capital in Public Education (SMHC). SMHC is a task force that helps states and school districts achieve dramatic improvements in performance.

Kelly's visit is coordinated by the Delaware Academy for School Leadership (DASL), a unit of the University of Delaware's College of Education and Public Policy, in partnership with the Delaware Department of Education. Funding was provided by The Wallace Foundation.

Managing human capital includes recruiting, hiring, developing and retaining the most important resource in public schools: educators. In a series of meetings with stakeholders, Kelly will discuss how states and districts can tackle achievement gaps and increase performance through human capital strategies.

According to SMHC, schools districts often use traditional human resources practices for teacher recruitment, selection, compensation and evaluation. Instead, SMHC advocates a series of strategies, all with student achievement at the core:

Educational improvement strategy: setting goals for student performance, aligned with rigorous standards, and developing instructional and assessment strategies to reach these goals.

Funding strategy: finding and aligning necessary resources to achieve student performance goals.

Talent strategy: defining the knowledge, skills and expertise that educators must have and developing systems to recruit, select, develop, motivate, reward and retain talented teachers and administrators.

After meeting with the state's legislators, business leaders and superintendents, Kelly will present to education practitioners on Oct. 7, from 4:30 to 6 p.m., at the Dover Downs Hotel and Conference Center. This event serves as the launch for the state Department of Education's Leadership for Learning series and is open to the public. To register, contact Alison Willey at [awilley@udel.edu] or (302) 855-1629.

Over the past 10 years, Delaware emerged as a national leader in building a Cohesive Leadership System (DCLS) that incorporates many human capital strategies. For instance, Delaware has the only statewide educator evaluation system in the country. DCLS and its partner organizations have also revamped leader preparation programs, developed aspiring leader pipelines, and researched teacher recruitment and retention, among other accomplishments.

Participants on Oct. 7 will therefore gain an understanding of best practices of strategic human capital management, and connect these to Delaware's ongoing efforts to improve public education.