This Special Issues Brief from the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders (GTL Center) outlines the unique characteristics of high-need schools, supports state and district leaders as they consider their role in implementing initiatives with a focus on equity, and explores how programs can be customized to meet the unique circumstances of a…

Nobody goes into teaching to get rich, but that's no excuse not to pay teachers as professionals. Compensation is one of the most important factors in determining who enters the teaching profession and how long they stay--yet 90 percent of all U.S. school districts pay teachers without any regard for their actual performance with students,…

Do teachers continue to improve in their effectiveness as they gain experience in the teaching profession? This paper aims to answer that question by critically reviewing recent literature that analyzes the effect of teaching experience on student outcomes in K-12 public schools in the United States. This report reviews 30 studies published within…

About 12 percent of all charter schools have bargaining agreements. Why do charter schools unionize? What is in these charter school contracts? Can they be considered innovative or models for union reform? And how do they compare to traditional district/union teacher contracts? Center on Reinventing Public Education legal analyst Mitch Price…

The purposes of this research were (a) to understand the frequency with which K-5 teachers use informational text in their routine classroom instruction, (b) to understand the percentage of informational text in classroom libraries, and (c) to explore teachers' attitudes about informational text. Survey data of 318 participants indicated that K-5…

The research in this article examined an often neglected, but nevertheless equally important, factor in the burnout and attrition rate of special education teachers. This factor was a lack of school supplies, materials and resources. This shortage was largely due to a constant "tug-of-war" with regular education personnel for the same…

Eric Hanushek and Steven Rivkin examine how salary and working conditions affect the quality of instruction in the classroom. The wages of teachers relative to those of other college graduates have fallen steadily since 1940. Today, average wages differ little, however, between urban and suburban districts. In some metropolitan areas urban…