Presents a strategy for identifying schools that are restructured across several dimensions. Analyzes data from a nominated sample of restructured schools to discover relevant dimensions and criteria and degree of restructuring. Schools tended to meet more criteria in the areas of student experiences and teachers' professional life; significantly…

Teachers need different types of communities to sustain and inspire them. They seek like-minded "outsiders" committed to learning and discussing what they learn. When the author invited "San Francisco Chronicle" readers to help convince his students about reading's importance, he received 1,000 helpful replies. (MLH)

This paper illuminates the tensions between the rhetoric and presumed rewards of an expanded conception of teachers' work and the work demands and strains introduced by such a conception. Based on data collected in the United States, this paper draws on multi-day, 24-hour time and task diaries recorded by case-study teachers, together with…

The authors of this report, education researchers and reformers, value both the promise and possibilities of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), with its mandate that states ensure a "highly qualified" teacher for every child in every core academic class. Reports by the Education Trust, the Center for Education Policy, and the Center…

The study attempted to obtain empirical evidence on teachers' attitude towards teaching profession in Midwestern Nigeria. To execute this study, 400 post primary school teachers were randomly drawn from 40 post primary schools in the area under study. The Teacher's Attitude Questionnaire was the main instrument used for data collection. Results of…

The leadership of Qatar is greatly invested in its K-12 education reform, "Education for a New Era," because it views education as the key to the nation's economic and social progress. This study, one of a number of RAND studies that trace and document the reform process in Qatar, was designed to assess progress made in the first years…

This paper explores the notion of educational partnerships and reports on research on client-provider partnerships between full primary schools and external technology education providers for Year 7 and 8 New Zealand students (age range approx. 12 to 13 years). Educational reforms in New Zealand and the introduction of a more holistic technology…

Interviews with participants in the Alum Rock Voucher Project revealed that the effects of a voucher system on teachers were varied and profound: greater teacher autonomy but increased responsibilities; more within-program cohesion but increased competition between programs; and greater parent involvement, requiring teachers to improve…

Some Scottish teachers voluntarily change sector from secondary to primary or vice versa, requiring them to take a shortened training ("conversion") course and assume probationary status. This paper analyzes 122 teachers' career-change motives, distinguishing between strategic reasons (more jobs in the new sector) and magnetic reasons…

Provides results of a survey given to 150 educators across 5 school Direct Instruction implementations. Proposes that this survey is an initial step in the direction of determining teacher preferences with regard to levels of support and coaching provided in school. Finds teachers identified the team-teach method of coaching as the most effective.…

Education is the only "business" in which the consumers (students) rather than the workers (teachers and administrators) do most of the work. For educational technology to fulfill its potential, we must change our views about work in schools. Technology must be used for the workers to improve connections and by the workers to enhance and extend…

Ultimately, student progress depends on teacher quality and motivation, the resources and support that teachers receive, and students' own efforts. Uninspired teachers should watch more innovative colleagues and accept their constructive suggestions. Nurturing a pedagogical culture of collaboration should lie at the heart of efforts to improve…

Teachers more often speak of professionalism in terms of environmental conditions than in terms of standards and dispositions. In 1989, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards devised a certification process that recognizes teachers for subject area expertise and for demonstrating what they know about students in early childhood or…

Whether organized around subject matter, teaching methods, school improvement, or restructuring efforts, successful networks share common features, such as focus, variety, and opportunities for discourse and leadership. Networks can also present nagging problems concerned with quality, application, stability, overextension, ownership, expanding…

A checklist for school boards is based on interviews with 26 school teachers who were asked what gift they would give their fellow teachers. Almost all the presents the teachers cited involved conditions that would make the teachers better professionals and their students more successful. (MLF)