The title is catchy and positive: "Smart, Skilled, and Striving: Transforming and Elevating the Teaching Profession." It sounds like a teacher-friendly approach to improving the perceptions and experiences of teachers working in classrooms. However, this report published by the Center for American Progress uses popular rhetoric and sound…

Recalling the myth of Sisyphus repeatedly pushing the same boulder up a mountain in his new book, author and educator Frederick M. Hess explains how the K12 education leadership is faltering, and how it can rise above. "Cage-Busting Leadership" (Harvard Education Press, February 2013) is a new book and consequently, a small, growing…

In this wide-ranging interview with Educational Leadership, Stanford University Professor of Education Linda Darling-Hammond discusses the kind of preparation and support new teachers need to survive their critical first years in the classroom. Among her central recommendations are more intensive mentoring that lasts through the first year of…

Contends that the typical substitute teacher program retains antiquated stop-gap measures of little value to a school. Offers suggestions for recruitment tactics, inservice training, and evaluation. (Author/WD)

In this essay recounting a midcareer faculty review, Vilma Hernandez is the fictitious name of a faculty member originally hired for affirmative action reasons who fails because of her inability to solicit support and the university's failure to offer it. Concludes that the university allowed her to fail. (JMF)

A typology is developed of the dimensions along which a teacher's contribution can be assessed and a pay plan projected that emphasizes each of these dimensions. Several issues cutting across various pay-reform proposals are discussed, notably the balance between rewarding veteran and novice teachers, and its effect on teacher recruitment. (RDN)

This booklet contains various papers, commissioned by the National Catholic Educational Association, on the hiring, education, and evaluation of Catholic school teachers. The topics discussed include (1) guidelines for hiring teachers, (2) characteristics to look for in teachers, (3) preparation of teacher applications and conducting the…

Relates part-time faculty effectiveness to recruitment and selection, orientation, supervision and support, evaluation, and professional development opportunities. Recommends improved communication and interaction between part-time faculty and administrators. (DMM)

Discusses methods of encouraging more people to pursue the teaching profession and considers more effective selection procedures designed to eliminate unacceptable candidates. Examines methods used to improve teacher training such as making use of practicing teachers in "partnership" programs. Concludes that teacher morale and satisfaction must be…

Encourages the development of a systematic approach to decision-making related to the recruitment, renewal, and reward of part-time faculty in community colleges. Maintains that good instruction depends upon proper administration of instruction. Describes various administrative techniques for facilitating the improvement of part-time instructor…

The author discusses several methods of improving teacher quality: rewarding faculty involved in student recruitment; teaching the design, delivery, and evaluation of instruction; encouraging participation in inservice programs; and recruiting the elderly to provide expertise in professional fields. The decline in the quantity and quality of…

Recognizes the benefits and problems of the utilization of part-time instructors. Considers recruitment, orientation and training, accessibility, supervision and communication, evaluation, and consideration of faculty needs as issues of importance in part-time instructor management. (AYC)

Develops a theoretical context for understanding the evidence on effective schools. Analyzes how effective schools have surmounted a central problem of inner-city schools, recruiting and retaining good teachers. Argues that because principals in effective schools focus on improving student achievement, teachers have concrete, realizable goals…

In the fall of 1977, students enrolled in an elementary school administration and supervision class at Indiana State University attempted to separate the "threats" from the "thorns" in elementary school administration. "Thorns" were defined as everlasting or recurrent problems, and "threats" were defined as relatively new problems perceived as…

This paper on the future of preservice teacher education examines the question of whether a crisis exists today in schools and in teacher education. It is noted that judgments vary, given different perspectives and vantage points for observation, and that a reliable assessment of the current health of schooling and teacher education is difficult.…