The issue of diversity in U.S. K-12 schools requires significant training and experiences for preservice teachers to recognize the importance of students' socio-cultural, religious values, and the influence their cultural background have in their quest to succeed in their educational endeavors. This study provides significant information to…

Education policy in the province of Alberta is set by Alberta Education, a ministry led by the province's minister of education. There are two key policies or ministerial orders that guide professional learning in Alberta. The Teaching Quality Standard outlines the knowledge, skills, and attributes that teachers are expected to possess. The…

This paper examines and reports on beginning generalist teacher self-efficacy, which Bandura (1997) suggests plays an important part in student outcomes. In 2008, 201 beginning generalist teachers throughout the state of Queensland, Australia, participated in a study that aimed to provide a snapshot of current perceptions towards support in…

Outlines the components of new teacher warranty programs. They offer two benefits, schools are assured new teachers will be effective, and teacher training institutions can use warranties to bolster their programs. (MD)

Presents seven goals to work toward achieving during the student teaching experience. This advice is provided to help student teachers ascertain their suitability to the teaching profession. (MD)

Forces which have influenced the shifting of moral foundations and their potential influence on the field of education are explained in this paper. Two categories of systems--soft and hard--are reviewed. A system 'hardens' when the emphasis on the application of a technique becomes more important than serving the purposes for which the technique…

Presents six letters discussing various aspects of a discussion on restructuring teachers' salaries in the Soviet Union. Considers such questions as who should determine skill level, evaluation criteria for the innovator, cost of living, and differences in school quality. (DK)

Topics urgently needed in the preservice teacher education curriculum are discussed: computer literacy, hardware, software, classroom management, and the changing teacher-pupil relationship in a computer usage setting. (MNS)

The author outlines the qualities of excellent teachers and points out that excellence itself is rare in many occupations. He also describes the difficulties teacher's face including the low status they hold in our society. He presents nine steps to follow to achieve excellence in education. (MD)

Emiliana Vegas surveys strategies used by the world's developing countries to fill their classrooms with qualified teachers. With their low quality of education and wide gaps in student outcomes, schools in developing countries strongly resemble hard-to-staff urban U.S. schools. Their experience with reform may thus provide insights for U.S.…

Evaluated the effectiveness of mathematics inservice for elementary teachers delivered in an institute format to improve the teachers' ability to provide meaningful, effective mathematics instruction. Describes the institute program and provides teachers' responses to questions related to mathematics teaching after the institute. (YP)

In North Olmsted City Schools, Ohio, teacher evaluation is a continuous, cooperative, constructive process involving both the evaluator and the teachers. One set of performance variables evaluated relates to professional climate: (1) classroom management; (2) pupil-teacher relationships; (3) pupil-pupil relationships; (4) teacher-parent…

Helen Ladd takes a comparative look at policies that the world's industrialized countries are using to assure a supply of high-quality teachers. Her survey puts U.S. educational policies and practices into international perspective. Ladd begins by examining teacher salaries--an obvious, but costly, policy tool. She finds, perhaps surprisingly,…

Accuracy in the scoring of writing is critical if standardized tasks are to be used in a national assessment scheme. Three approaches to establishing accuracy (i.e., consensus, consistency, and measurement) exist and commonly large-scale assessment programs of primary school writing demonstrate adjacent agreement consensus rates of between 80% and…