What constitutes good teaching is discussed in connection with the Holmes Group proposals for differentiated staffing. Professional development schools that support good teaching and good teacher education are recommended. (Author/MT)

Competing notions of education are reviewed. The progressivist notion is individualistic and aims at self-actualization, whereas the more conservative perspective emphasizes a mechanistic approach in which some students' full potential may not be realized. To accommodate student differences, curricula must be treated as useful guidelines to…

Reviews research that supports the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future's analysis and recommendations on elementary and secondary school reform. It describes the research and programmatic work needed to test the policy hypothesis offered by the commission's report to move the field of educational reform forward in the areas of…

This article explores the contributions of professionalism to school accountability in the context of a new phenomenon in American education: the professional development school. (IAH)

Teacher knowledge and skills make a significant difference in student achievement. This paper discusses recommendations by the National Commission on Teaching on how to ensure that every child has access to high quality teaching; superior teaching in other industrialized countries; unqualified U.S. teachers; variations among states; states and…

Proposes new forms of teacher leadership emerging in professional development schools. Suggests that teacher leadership is inextricably connected to teacher learning and can be embedded in tasks and roles that do not create artificial, imposed, formal hierarchies; such approaches may lead to greater profession-wide leadership, thereby improving…

An introduction to five case studies of mathematics teachers and ancillary essays on implementation of instructional policy change at the classroom level is provided. The case studies and associated discussions focus on California's new Mathematics Framework, which features changes in textbooks, tests, and commonly held conceptions of subject…

This paper offers an overview and analysis of the status of teaching as an occupation and of teacher development in the United States. An opening section describes the development of the industrial-based education model that has been in place for this century and the reform movements that have started in the past two decades. A section on the…