Presents opinions of professionals on the current state of the high school play. Participants include a playwright, play supplier, high school theater instructor, workshop leader, and play publisher. Discusses selection, production, and performance of plays. (JMF)

A humorous account is given of an imaginary negotiation between teacher and students about a learning contract. (PBS)

Profiles the American Vocational Association vocational teacher of the year, Rebecca Rhodes, in "Coming Full Circle" (Lozada); the outstanding vocational educator, Roy Peters, Jr., in "The Shoes Fit" (Dykman); and the outstanding new vocational teacher, Ann Krause, in "First Love" (Vo). (SK)

Teacher licensing, accreditation, and advanced certification must be fully developed, strengthened, and supported as in other professions. Some alternative approaches are less rigorous shortcuts that do not ensure effectiveness. (SK)

Critiques an article about problems with underqualified secondary teachers and out-of-field teaching. Discusses the influence of subject knowledge on student learning, noting that literature suggests its impact is of little consequence. While research does not blame out-of-field teaching for students' inferior international assessment performance,…

Focuses on the professional development policy for second-level teachers. Reviews existing policy and attempts to generalize about policymaking and identifying future policy and focus. (JOW)

Teacher development should focus on student learning, recognize that change affects teachers personally, change the organizational culture, use a systems approach, make learning processes for teachers model the type of instruction desired, and provide time for collaboration. (SK)

A new classroom technique called "stool time", which can be used while teaching chemistry to students is described. It is advised that in a break from lecture, the teacher should shift to a wooden stool to share an anecdote, a bit of information about a famous figure of science, which will help the students to see the teacher more as a person.

The factors responsible for the shortage of middle and secondary mathematics teachers in the U.S. are discussed. Seven strategies are suggested to reach out and recruit more mathematics teachers in the future.

Two secondary classroom teachers and teacher educators in the English education program share their beliefs about and experiences with teaching writing. They discuss the importance of writing with a sense of purpose, of keeping one's audience in mind and of considering the role of the teachers to get the students fired up.

High school teacher Susan Arpajian Jolley emphasizes experience and understanding by using the related novels "Wide Sargasso Sea" and "Jane Eyre" to help her students travel into unfamiliar cultural territory. "Wide Sargasso Sea" relates to Caribbean history and culture, feminism, race relations, colonialism, and…

This issue of CPRE Policy Briefs summarizes the findings on issues related to teacher quality in the chapter by the author in the book, "The State of Education Policy Research" (Cohen, Fuhrman, Mosher, Eds., 2007). This report also draws on discussions that took place during a summer, 2006, policy briefing on teacher labor-market issues…

The Commentary salutes AMATYC for its significant contributions to standards-based education in mathematics and discusses possible audiences for Beyond Crossroads, in addition to the primary audience of faculty members and departments in two-year institutions. Because Beyond Crossroads focuses on lower division college mathematics, it helps…

Describes various solutions to the problem of a shortage of secondary mathematics and science teachers. Focuses on the popular solution of higher salaries and notes the advantages and disadvantages of the solution. Considers the concept of comparable worth of teachers. (SB)

Describes the results of a secondary school English teacher's decision to apply for the National Endowment's summer seminars, from reassessment of her own academic history to joining with other teachers in an intensely intellectual experience. (MM)