In this plenary I reflect on the research I have shared over the past many years of participating and presenting in PME and PME-NA conferences to identify three intellectual divides that continually challenge and motivate my scholarship. I discuss how these intellectual borders (mathematics/education; expert/novice; research/teaching) create…

The policy reforms over the past 15 years have placed all the responsibility for reading achievement on teachers, with little, if any, support. What many have achieved is declining achievement in comparison with other countries. Moreover, there are increasing teacher shortages, as promising individuals choose other careers and teachers leave the…

This article address the falsehoods regarding No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top legislation, the educational reformers' stance that schools are failing, the privatization movement in education, and the issues of technology in the schools. The importance of poverty is emphasized, although policymakers ignore it and advocate school choice as…

It has been generally accepted that teaching does not meet the criteria of a profession, at least as exemplified by the more mature professions of medicine and law (Abbott, 1988; Darling-Hammond & Youngs, 2002; Etzioni, 1969; Howsam, Corrigan, Denemark, & Nash, 1976). Teaching is most often referred to as a semiprofession; Myers's (2008 [this…

Levine notes that education has declined as a national priority. He appeals to the next U.S. president to champion quality education in America, addressing the achievement gap by focusing on teachers. He urges that the nation dignify the teaching profession, restoring its prestige through the equivalent of a Rhodes Scholarship program for teachers…

The author of this article states that, for more than 20 years, public educators have developed a professional inferiority complex and a strong sense of hopelessness. After all, he claims, the dominant message over those years, including from some within the profession, has been that educators have caused the declining quality in public schools.…

Like practitioners in other professional fields, educators must keep au courant with the emerging knowledge and must be prepared to use it to continually fine-tune their conceptual and craft skills. Is there a difference between the professional development training experienced by teachers' verses the professional development provided to other…

Suggests that a way out of the current malaise of American education may be to locate educational excellence in accessible American fiction. Discusses Frances Gray Patton's "Good Morning, Miss Dove," in which the central character is an elementary school geography teacher. (RS)

Contends that teaching is wholistic--a synthesis of planning, organizing, implementing, and evaluating/assessing. Discusses qualities and conditions necessary in the development of good teachers, including factors of safety, leadership, team support, goals, and teacher renewal. Compares routine teaching and "real" teaching. (DMM)

The secretary of education explains why he thinks a position of "master teacher" would help raise the esteem in which teachers are held and attract more highly qualified students to the profession. (SK)

Ten steps to improve teacher training are emphasis on quality, training of master teachers, research on excellence, higher admission criteria, higher certification criteria, subject matter mastery, time for development, licensing standards, better salaries and conditions, and belief in the worth of the profession. (SK)

In the view of a continuing education unit in a rural health education center in Australia, competency-based training emphasizes what a person can actually do as a result of training. Professional continuing education courses are being developed using accredited guidelines from the national Vocational Education Training Assessment Board. (SK)

Suggests a particular way to think about the issue of quality in training, an approach that relates quality to customer satisfaction. Distinguishes between training efforts that are good but not as complete as one would like and those that are second rate. (JOW)

Responds to an article that offered 10 dichotomies in teacher education (SP 527 128), sharing several memories of events related to those dichotomies. The memories highlight the fact that each of the 10 dichotomies was being discussed and worked on 25 years ago. Suggests that the same issues will still be explored in another 25 years, which is for…

Using the case of the Flemish policy on educational quality and based on a series of case studies, the author argues that the impact of central policy measures on educational practices in schools is never simply straightforward. Policy measures are always interpreted by and translated to the particular context of a school. In these processes of…