Lisa Lachlan-Hache

Lisa Lachlan, Ed.D., has nearly two decades of experience as an expert in educator effectiveness and the professional growth of teachers and leaders. She most recently served as the director of the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders (GTL Center) at AIR, where she spearheaded support to state and local education agencies on the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of educator quality, human capital, diversity, and equitable access systems. Under her leadership, the GTL Center amplified its reach to 1.6 million policymakers and practitioners through targeted communication and dissemination plans, leveraging social media to curate and elevate evidence-based practices across the country. Her vision expanded the GTL portfolio to serve the country with technical assistance focused on all aspects of the talent development continuum including: compensation reform, workforce shortages, teacher well-being and working conditions, comprehensive mentoring and induction, and professional learning on high-leverage practices, and the role of the principal in mentoring and induction.

Dr. Lachlan served as a respected subject matter expert for 6 US Department of Education National Centers, 10 Regional Comprehensive Centers, 3 Regional Education Laboratories, and the National Comprehensive Center. Her work consistently resulted in widely-used resources aimed to support SEAs, LEAs, and EPPs in using evidence-based practices to support the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of professional learning systems for educators. While her work has national reach, it is grounded in partnerships with local practitioners through 1) research to practice/policy projects like the University of North Carolina General Administration’s Study of Beginning Teacher Needs and the National Collaborative on Educator Diversity and Workforce Shortages, and 2) evidence-based practice to policy projects like Jefferson County Public School’s Accelerating the Success of Improvement Schools, Hawai’i Department of Education Data Driven Conversations for Equitable Access, and Kokomo Indiana’s Mentoring and Induction in High-Need Schools.

Her vision is grounded in equitable, evidence-based practices and the continuous improvement of policies, programs, and practices for the educator workforce: Raising the Bar on Teacher Pay, The Impact of a $10,000 Bonus on Special Education Teacher Shortages in Hawai‘i in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, “How Districts and States are Addressing Teacher Turnover” and Learner-ready to expert practitioner: Academy supports teachers’ transitions while addressing equity in the Learning Professional, Targeted comprehensive induction for urban educators: An exploration of teacher motivation and retention in the New Educator and The evolution of new teacher induction policy: Support, specificity, and autonomy in the journal Educational Policy. Under her leadership, AIR and the GTL Center strategically partnered with federal centers, equity centers, regional education laboratories, regional comprehensive centers, other national non-profit organizations and associations, state education agencies, and district teams to leverage the collective expertise of the education community in the development, implementation, and evaluation of education workforce initiatives.