There’s an educator shortage globally, and the need for over 40 million teachers by 2030 to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals highlights its severity. Mr. Elmer, an education software company, has observed teachers struggle with immense workloads, schools churn employees fast, and the younger generation hesitate to enter the profession. These observations have motivated it to develop innovative tools and data-driven solutions that can help solve the overarching issue surrounding retaining teachers.
Mr. Elmer believes that there are several facets to this crisis. Numerous teachers around the world are leaving the profession, and many do so only within the first few years. With 86% of public schools in the United States finding it difficult to hire educators who are qualified, the problem becomes even more concerning. Not to mention the fact that there’s already a significant portion of educators in certain states in the country who are underqualified.
Why are teachers leaving? There are several answers to this question. First, teaching wages are disproportionately low, especially when compared to other roles with similar qualifications. Both aspiring and seasoned educators look for other opportunities (understandably so). Adding to that are the seemingly endless administrative tasks, paperwork, and pressure to meet testing standards when they’re supposed to primarily focus on instruction.
Mr. Elmer has also seen lapses in how traditional schools address issues in students’ learning. Teachers typically rely on piles of unchecked paperwork and delayed observation cycles to create plans on how to help struggling students. This process delays intervention and only adds to the educator’s workload. It’s hardly surprising that it contributes to burnout.
The education software company strays away from this outdated model. It developed a system that catches the learning gaps of students from day one. This means teachers immediately obtain worksheets and strategies for intervention, allowing them to support students having learning difficulties and, at the same time, lessen their workloads.
Mr. Elmer intends to unify the fragments of students’ education into a single narrative because it believes that student relationships are, in a sense, continuous. Teachers and staff members are all included in a student’s story, which means a single assessment can’t fully capture their entire potential.
The dedicated team of Mr. Elmer acknowledges this, which is why it created tools that combine academic assessments, anecdotal observations, and behavior reports into a coherent feed. With a “whole student story,” teachers can immediately see the full picture and craft a plan of action to address what students need. Mr. Elmer’s Intervention Compass® is one such tool.
The Intervention Compass® helps districts improve how they plan and executive interventions. It automates the management process, from screening, planning, collecting data, and forming teams to creating professional learning communities and monitoring progress. Schools can use this tool to streamline tasks and enable their teachers to implement evidence-based interventions that are focused on improving students’ test scores and performance.
All these are possible with AI, which allows the platform to process the narrative notes that teachers create daily. The technology goes through vast written observations, obtains key insights, and then crafts a summary of where students succeed and what their challenges are. Critical feedback doesn’t get buried under all the clutter, which means superintendents can immediately learn about the progress of their school and solve problems before they turn for the worse.
To learn about Intervention Compass®’s impact, it’s best to cite the Burton School District as an example. The school was having trouble with how convoluted and inefficient the traditional process was. It utilized Mr. Elmer’s tool to streamline the system, which allowed it to capture and act upon intervention data in real-time. The district saw that its students’ performance improved. In addition, it also boosted teacher morale, as it reduced administrative tasks and provided clearer insights.
John Daniel, co-founder and president of Mr. Elmer, shares: “We simply made the process that’s already there transparent and accessible. Our system brings every piece of data to light in a natural, integrated way. This is what allows educators to solve issues quickly and make a difference for their students.”
Mr. Elmer’s innovative approach correlates with seminal educational research. John Hattie’s influential work in “Visible Learning” revealed that the typical effect of classroom instruction hovers around an effect size of 0.4 sigma—roughly the equivalent of one year’s growth in student achievement. Under optimal conditions, it’s generally considered that exceptional teachers might secure gains of up to 1.5 to 2 years within a single school year. In practical terms, if a student starts the year significantly behind, even the most effective teaching can only bring them up to that “defined limit” of measurable progress. This inherent ceiling in growth (sometimes described as the “physics of educational progress”) can be demoralizing for teachers who face impossible expectations when trying to close wide learning gaps.
Benjamin Bloom’s research on the “2 sigma problem” complements Hattie’s findings. Bloom’s work suggests that if group instruction could be reimagined to approach the intensity and personalization of individual tutoring, the gap in achievement would dramatically narrow. In other words, traditional methods can yield modest results, but innovative instructional strategies have the potential to outperform the norm.
The picture becomes more compelling when these insights are correlated with the impact of integrated intervention systems like Intervention Compass®. The platform facilitates timely, tiered responses that echo the principles behind Hattie’s and Bloom’s research by combining real-time data analytics with student biography (capturing factors such as family dynamics, peer influences, and subtle shifts in student engagement).
Ultimately, change-makers in the space must embrace technology and rethink intervention processes to break the barriers that prevent the progress of both students and educators. Mr. Elmer’s Intervention Compass® plays an important role in this landscape, addressing immediate classroom challenges and long-term teacher retention issues.
“There has to be some radical change in public education. We must run our schools like businesses that are efficient, transparent, and accountable—not bogged down by outdated processes that waste time and money. We can only get ahead if we address core issues like rampant teacher burnout and related problems like the unsustainable growth in referrals for special education,” Co-Founder Doug Mackay remarks.
Media Contact
Name: John Daniel
Email: media@mrelmer.com
