• career opportunities
• company phone and email directory
• consultants / presenters
• contact us
• meet the staff
• procedure for becoming a professional development associate

About Us

The Leadership and Learning Center, formerly the Center for Performance Assessment, is a professional development, publishing, and consulting organization that works with schools throughout the world to improve student achievement and educational equity.  Founded by Dr. Douglas Reeves, The Center professional and technical staff numbers over sixty people and has worked in all fifty states and every Canadian province, as well as Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, and the Middle East.  Although most of our work is with public school systems, we have also worked with religious and secular independent schools, charter schools, community colleges, technical schools, universities, state departments of education, national ministries of education, and international educational associations.

The Center has three primary activities:  professional development, publishing, and consulting.

First, The Center provides professional development seminars for teachers, school leaders, and policymakers.  We specialize in professional development in leadership, effective teaching strategies, data analysis, and standards-based assessment.  In addition, we provide seminars specifically adapted for the needs of second language and special education students.

Second, The Center publishes resources, including books, videos, audio books, posters, and other tools for teachers, leaders, and parents.  Some of The Center’s most well-known publications include Making Standards Work by Douglas Reeves, Power Standards by Larry Ainsworth, Show Me The Proof! by Stephen White, and the Write to Know Series.

Third, The Center provides personalized consulting services including the development of accountability systems, creation of assessment systems, research, evaluation, coaching, and individualized services designed to meet the unique needs of each client.

Our most successful clients form long-term partnerships with The leadership and Learning Center.  These partnerships include the following elements:

• Comprehensive needs analysis
• Focused, consistent, and sustained professional development for teachers, school leaders, district leaders, and board members
• Capacity-building with district employees as certified professional developers
• Comprehensive accountability systems
• Personalized and continuous leadership and policy support

After performing comprehensive needs analysis, The Center considers the unique needs of each district, including student characteristics, board goals, and leadership vision.  Rather than add a new layer of programs and activities on already over-burdened teachers and school leaders, The Center designs its support to help districts gain more value out of the work they are already doing.

The Center’s professional development support is focused on meeting the needs of individual teachers and school leaders.  Our emphasis is on effective teaching strategies, classroom assessment, leadership effectiveness, data analysis, and second language and special education students.  We also provide customized professional development seminars designed to meet the particular needs of schools and districts. 

An integral part of effective professional development is capacity building, in which The Center will work with district employees to become certified professional developers so that districts will have a long-term sustained ability to deliver staff development without spending resources on outside trainers, travel, and lodging expenses.  In order to give districts and communities insight into all that schools do beyond a list of test scores, The Center will assist school systems in creating comprehensive accountability systems.  

The Center will also provide personalized and continuous leadership and policy support, working one-on-one with superintendents, senior district leaders, and building principals.  As an exclusive benefit for our partnership school systems, Center leaders are available for keynote presentations as well as community, parent, and business leader presentations.