The system-wide curriculum development and instructional improvement (ESEA Title III) project concerned itself in the first phase with mathematics; emphasis in the 18-month second phase will be in social studies. In spring 1968, committees were formed representing the primary, middle, junior high and high school levels, and college consultants and…

Teachers and administrators often note that preservice programs do not prepare future teachers adequately to teach reading. Several Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states have addressed this problem. In 1997, the Georgia Professional Standards Review Commission began examining reading certification requirements and found that most teacher…

Job-embedded professional learning is a familiar concept in the Edenton-Chowan Public School System. In this article, the authors present D.F. Walker Elementary School in Edenton, North Carolina, a school where the entire staff focuses on continual learning, and teacher assistants engage in job-embedded, ongoing professional development to become…

This North Carolina edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ's) 2009 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" is the third annual look at state policies impacting the teaching profession. It is hoped that this report will help focus attention on areas where state policymakers can make changes that will have a positive impact on…

This document provides resources and tools for program developers who are designing orientations to meet the specific needs of their novice teachers. Section one looks at key questions for program developers to consider when designing an orientation (what they want beginning teachers to know about the community, district, school, and job). Section…

Education researchers and policymakers agree that teachers differ in terms of quality and that quality matters for student achievement. Despite prodigious amounts of research, however, debate still persists about the causal relationship between specific teacher credentials and student achievement. In this paper, we use a rich administrative data…

The North Carolina Teacher Performance Appraisal System (TPAS) and a pilot career development program were studied via a survey of 1,998 teachers and 338 evaluators. Overall reaction to the TPAS and its evaluation instrument was positive, with teachers agreeing that the procedures for formative and summative evaluations are feasible. (SLD)

The experience described by Kay Hoag, Advocacy Chair of the National Network for Early Language Learning (NNELL), exemplifies the threat of program elimination and/or cutbacks that elementary school foreign language programs across the nation experienced with increased frequency during the 2002-2003 academic year. Reports of these threats…

Many educators have suggested that teachers hold the authority, and thus the responsibility, for initiating the curricular and instructional changes made within their own classrooms. One implication of this suggestion is that teachers be reflective about their practice. Yet, reflection is a difficult process that requires critical thought,…

This report compares the average annual earnings of teachers to the average annual earnings of college graduates in full-time salaried, nonteaching positions in six states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina. This is the seventh in a series of annual analyses of wage comparability studies. In addition to…

Teachers rely on mental planning throughout the design, implementation, and evaluation phases of instruction. This paper focuses on the elementary school teacher's use of instructional design (ID) skills in the planning and delivery of instruction, emphasizing the relative and "real" use of ID practices in both mental and written…

This document responds to the components of North Carolina's Excellent Schools Act that pertain to mentoring. The first section includes tools for the selection of mentors: a listing of mentor selection criteria, a mentor nomination form, a faculty survey instrument for mentor candidates, interview questions for mentors, a mentor application form,…

An overview is presented of a third-party evaluation of the North Carolina Career Development Plan, at the end of the third year of a four-year pilot program. Under scrutiny were the Teacher Performance Appraisal Instrument (TPAI) and the Principal Performance Appraisal Instrument (PPAI), as well as the appeals process for those delayed for…

In this article, the authors consider three sources of support for new teachers--hiring practices, relationships with colleagues, and curriculum--all found in earlier research to influence new teachers' satisfaction with their work, their sense of success with students, and their eventual retention in their job. They find that a "support…

Demographic changes in college graduates who received teaching certificates between 1975 and 1985 are assessed. The effects of demographic characteristics, subject specialties, and scores on National Teacher Examinations on certificants becoming teachers in North Carolina are examined. Results highlight the need for more Black college students to…