When the Burke County Board of Education mandated Burke County High School in Waynesboro, Georgia to "seek a solution" to its poor graduation rate--specifically, to change the school's schedule, teachers were given the responsibility and authority to plan and facilitate the transition. The transition process taught teachers and…

The term "teacher retention" refers to the ability to keep teachers on the job. In other words, it is the ability to reduce or eliminate teacher turnover. "Turnover" refers to the migration of teachers between schools or districts "and" the attrition of teachers from the profession (Ingersoll & Perda, 2009). From the perspective of a principal,…

The common approach to scaling, according to Christopher Dede, a professor of learning technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is to jump in and say, "Let's go out and find more money, recruit more participants, hire more people. Let's just keep doing the same thing, bigger and bigger." That, he observes, "tends to…

As members of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) Task Force on Principal Preparation, the authors recently completed a study of the changing role of the secondary principal. One striking finding was that multiple roles and responsibilities leave today's principal feeling chronically harried and overworked. For…

Teachers in the second stages of their careers--those with 4-10 years of experience--are often eager to vary their responsibilities, work collaboratively with peers, and influence teaching beyond their own classrooms. With many veteran teachers retiring, principals are apt to recruit these second-stage teachers to fill teacher leadership…

Although most schools are formally structured to support a hierarchical model of leadership, the culture within the education profession supports a rich egalitarian ethic. This article discusses the relational model of school leadership, which offers an alternative to the hierarchical model. The relational model views leadership as residing not in…

The Partnership for Reform in Secondary Science and Mathematics (PRiSSM) is a three-year project that targeted mathematics and science teachers in middle and high schools from six districts in southwest Washington. Consistent with NSDC (2009) recommendations for professional development, PRiSSM involved collaborative teacher teams in reflecting on…

At some point in their career, most teachers wonder whether administration might be right for them. Some quickly reject the idea; they like what they do and don't want to be too far removed from the children. Some teachers decide not to enter administration because they don't want what they perceive as the additional stress or responsibility that…

"Strategic Management of Human Capital in Education" offers a comprehensive and strategic approach to address what has become labeled as "talent and human capital." Grounded in extensive research and examples of leading edge districts, this book shows how the entire human resource system in schools--from recruitment, to selection/placement,…

This article presents a framework for establishing inquiry as a foundation of a teacher education program to help prospective and practicing teachers view inquiry not as a project but as a stance. Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2009) assert that "working from an inquiry stance involves a continual process of making current arrangements problematic,…

It is a challenge for schools with large populations of students from low-income, migrant, and international families to ensure that every student reaches proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments. Traditionally, schools across the country have tended to cope with this challenge by offering a…

Title I schools that want desperately to raise student scores on high-stakes tests often have found it hard to resist the lure of scripted literacy programs, especially in the face of pressure from No Child Left Behind to raise test scores. In recent years, many high-poverty elementary schools have adopted such programs in spite of evidence about…

One of the most popular--but flawed--perspectives on the problem of ensuring teacher quality has to do with the control and accountability of the teaching force. According to this view, the obvious antidote to the ills of the education system is to increase the centralized control of schools and hold teachers more accountable. Proponents of this…

According to a survey by the Center for Teacher Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University, teachers want training to help them become effective leaders in the policy arena. The Virginia Teacher Leaders Network and the Center for Teacher Leadership provide examples of teachers who have successfully influenced policy in multiple areas: the…

This article considers the ways in which distributed forms of leadership can positively influence school development and change. The article focuses on the findings from an initial evaluation and impact assessment of a leadership programme provided by the "Specialist Schools and Academies Trust" for teachers in their first five years of teaching.…