In the wake of new teaching standards and evaluation systems introduced in the United States, teacher collaboration has emerged as a common theme. However, despite these recent changes, teaching is still largely a private act, in which teachers are often secluded from their colleagues. This study investigated the range and variation of the…

Begun in 1994, the New York Philharmonic School Partnership Program (SPP) gives elementary schools the unique opportunity of integrating symphonic music into the school community through collaborations between Philharmonic teaching artists and classroom teachers in full-year residencies. During the three-year curriculum, students gain skills in…

A major focus of the booming education technology sector is on products that aim to help teachers improve classroom practice. For their part, districts must figure out which of these resources will be most useful to schools. In New York City, the Department of Education developed its own Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS), which…

In the last decade, there have been significant increases in the New York City high school graduation rates. Nevertheless, far too many students are graduating high school without the knowledge and skills they will need for college and career, and far too many continue to require remediation once they arrive at college. A central priority of the…

A university's seminar model suggests the design of a collaborative structure that promotes team sharing and problem solving. The mentoring that occurs in the seminar comes mainly from the student teachers sharing their experiences with each other and working together to make sense of their classrooms in the context of the theories they have…

This study looks deeply inside 17 schools that stand at the vanguard of the current revolution in teaching. This new National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) report reveals the substantive ways in which these schools are providing their teachers with more time to reflect on, develop, and hone their craft, by very explicitly leveraging an…

Data-driven approaches to school decision making have come into widespread use in the past decade, nationally and in New York City. New Visions has been at the forefront of those developments: in New Visions schools, teacher teams and school teams regularly examine student performance data to understand patterns and drive classroom- and…

State and district leaders across the country are working intensely to respond to legislation calling for revised teacher evaluation systems that incorporate multiple measures of student learning and teacher practice. Whether through strengthened accountability or more formative support, the primary goal of this work is the continuous improvement…

This case study addressed a gap in literature by focusing on how teachers perceived the impact of mentoring programs on the support and collaboration of first-year teachers. A qualitative case study design was conducted using semistructured interviews and documents. A sample of 16 teachers from two different school districts in New York State…

Background/Context: Prior research has investigated the literacy achievement gap with particular focus on ethnically and linguistically diverse students' performance. This study extends that research by examining the relationships among classroom instructional practices, school priorities, and district policies in higher performing schools.…

The advent of Common Core Standards in New York State has forced a revisitation of past practices. With a goal of ensuring that all students are college and career-ready by the end of high school these standards call for increased rigor and higher expectations at all grade levels. The purpose of this study was to analyze through collaborative…

Performance-based compensation systems have been under discussion for years and are now a required component of any state plan for Race to the Top funds. This article describes a system of performance-based compensation that has been in place at a K-12 school for the past four years. The system was developed by a team of teachers, union members,…

One increasingly popular way of supporting new teachers is through the use of mentoring. New teachers are often paired with mentors as one of a number of supports meant to aid new teachers as they begin their career. The various types of mentoring range from school based mentors assigned by the school to specialty mentors, such as math coaches.…

School leadership has been shown to exert a positive but mostly indirect influence on school and student outcomes. Currently, there is great interest in how quality leadership preparation is related to leadership practice and improved teacher outcomes. The purpose of the study was to understand the moderating influence of leadership preparation on…

This was a qualitative study of highly effective, veteran middle school teachers and their attitudes toward self-efficacy, burnout, resiliency, content knowledge, professional development, and the use of technology. This study involved a group of veteran teachers that have proven, over the entirety of their careers, to be highly effective. They…