RALEIGH, (SGRToday.com) - It's a thumbs up for North Carolina's plan to give teachers more support for helping students acheive.

North Carolina is one of nine states to receive approval from the U.S. Department of Education for what's known as Excellent Educators for All.
 
The other states that won approval are Idaho, Illinois, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah and Wyoming.

 North Carolina's plan relies heavily on better teacher preparation to ensure high-quality instruction in high-need schools.

"Six of the states we are approving today —Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio, Utah—are taking steps to increase data-driven decision-making, to help ensure that schools and districts have access to accurate and timely information necessary to make knowledgeable decisions," according to the federal agency's announcement.

"These steps include, for example, North Carolina’s work to develop a Human Capital Dashboard which will enable principals and human resource managers and administrators to analyze the effectiveness of teachers moving in and out of districts and schools to drive human capital decisions; and Ohio’s work to gather data from multiple systems and compile it into an Educator Workforce Strength Index that will allow districts to begin action planning around various, school-level, data measures, including those specifically related to equity gaps."

Read the full announcement at ed.gov.