In this webinar, Dr. Stephanie Hirsh, Executive Director of Learning Forward, presented the research on effective PLCs and shared her experiences in creating, assessing, and leading PLCs. This Q&A addressed questions participants had for Dr. Hirsh following the webinar. The webinar recording and PowerPoint presentation are also available.

The author is a special education teacher in New York and a mother of two children on the autism spectrum. The author's intimate involvement in the education system has made navigating the world of special education for her children easier in some ways, but also infinitely more difficult and heartbreaking in others. Since the passage of No…

Accountability demands place tremendous pressures on high schools to meet specific standards. To satisfy demands, grading policies are becoming more liberal. Grade inflation is the result and a growing concern. This controversial subject contains a number of dangers. To combat the trend, teachers must realize the impact of grade inflation and take…

Performance Management clearly illustrates an attempt by the State to control the work of teachers by making them more efficient, more effective and more accountable. This article will critically scrutinise this bureaucratic process and amplify the voices of those being controlled and will highlight first-hand accounts of how teachers employ…

Concerned that various reforms promising greater professional autonomy and status as well as student success are actually disempowering teachers, impoverishing intellectual life in schools, and serving as a portal for the marketization of teaching and education, editors invited teachers to respond to the ways in which the proliferation of…

There is no higher calling than that of a teacher. The current emphasis on standards and testing has the unfortunate side-effect of reducing this calling to matters of technical expertise and what is called, by the pundits, accountability. The author contends that the call to teach is far deeper than becoming an expert technician. Because teachers…

The impact of the accountability movement is examined in terms of the defensiveness which such programs have caused among educators and its emphasis on what schools cannot do rather than what they can do. (JMF)

The key culprit in academic failures is teachers' attitudes about students' learning abilities. Several ways to correct this bias and to help all students realize their potential are discussed. (CJ)

With good teachers leaving the profession over No Child Left Behind, this law is in danger of disenfranchising the very kids it was enacted to protect. Many teachers worry that the law will simply be ineffective at truly raising student achievement.

Recent reform initiatives, especially the No Child Left Behind Act, tend to rely on a variety of highly debatable assumptions that fail to reflect the diversity of today's classrooms and also place pressure on educators in a manner we characterize as accountability by assumption. Such reform initiatives have become so political, complex, and…

This paper presents interviews with Dr. Jon Mueller and Dr. Paula Harris. Dr. Jon Mueller is a professor of Psychology at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Dr. Paula Harris is a professor in the Department of Language, Literature, and Arts at Jackson Community College in Jackson, Michigan. In these interviews, they present a…

Principalship need not be a futile attempt to satisfy the demands of many different parties. Rather, a climate of cooperation can be established through mutual teacher/administrator support. (DCS)

Schools should stop defending their turf and acknowledge they must earn the right to provide education. Educators should develop high expectations of students, value data gathering, provide parental/community feedback opportunities, and craft strong local achievement indicators. The result will be improved teacher satisfaction and taxpayer…

Engaging students requires giving them a say in what they learn and how they will learn it. However, in strictly disciplined, rule-bound schools with test-driven curricula, this cannot happen. Edison Schools, Inc., a for-profit Education Management Organization (EMO), and Confluence Academy, an Edison-run school located in one of the most…

Attempts to improve urban school systems have been many and varied. Still there has been little appreciable improvement in the quality and/or results of urban education. One primary reason why the "innovations" have failed is that most of them have been introduced into an ongoing social system with little or no attempt to assess their effects on…