On November 19, 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would invest $290 million to support effective teaching as a means to ensure all students receive the education they need to succeed in high school and beyond. The foundation made six-year grants to support four Intensive Partnership for Effective Teaching (IP) sites…

A comprehensive adjunct faculty training program is described, whose aim is to improve student perceptions of courses and programs in a private, not-for-profit MBA and Law degree granting university in San Francisco, The program is somewhat novel in that it uses (a) student input from open-ended responses on course evaluations to determine faculty…

This paper raises issues regarding two reports on improving teaching: the Report of the California Commission on the Teaching Profession, "Who Will Teach Our Children: A Strategy for Improving California's Schools" and the Carnegie Report, "A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century." A brief review is presented on the…

This paper draws from a case study of first year district implementation of the California Mentor Teacher Program in one of the largest districts in California. The paper focuses on the opportunities offered to teachers who work with mentors. Through the presentation of a selection of vignettes of teachers who worked with mentors, the paper…

This report describes a study on Arizona's beginning teacher induction, examining how induction program elements vary statewide. It also examines three induction models: the California Model, the Connecticut Model, and a model for science teachers in Arizona. In 2000, researchers surveyed 197 traditional public school districts regarding their…

The study presented here examines whether an ethnographic approach to the study of teaching yields new insight into the teaching-learning process. Two-hundred teachers, who differed in measured effectiveness, were recruited from thirteen school districts in the state of California. Each teacher taught two experimental teaching units (ETU's) of…

The Inland Empire (California) Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment Project (IE-BTSA) is intended to develop and implement assessment strategies designed for beginning teachers. The IE-BTSA program includes three major assessments used throughout the beginning teachers' induction year: a classroom observation, a learning journal, and a teacher…

As the nation gears up for a massive educational restructuring, a major issue regarding thousands of teachers who function at substandard levels has yet to be addressed, and even the latest educational restructuring proposals show little concern for this problem. Indicators of marginality include failure to maintain discipline, difficulties in…

The California Mentor Teacher Program, brought into being by California Senate Bill 813, is designed to retain and recognize excellent teachers and to improve the profession by enabling expert teachers to assist others. Four major issues to consider in developing mentor teacher programs are discussed. First is the importance of collaboration with…

Nine San Francisco (California) second-year teachers who had conducted structured weekly meetings during their preservice program continue to meet monthly with two Stanford University researchers. At these meetings they discuss emerging values, philosophies, and pedagogical practice. The meetings involve formal check-in times for individuals to…

States have enacted a variety of far-reaching educational reforms in recent years which have focused on a mix of standards for improved programs and greater accountability for both students and teachers. In California, teacher professionalism reforms, including induction reform, have been introduced. Research, now in its third and final year, has…

The San Francisco Math Leadership Project is an attempt to re-educate elementary teachers, many of whom do not consider mathematics their favorite subject and have limited mathematics backgrounds. The task is to increase the mathematics knowledge of these teachers and build their confidence in their own ability to do mathematics and to teach it.…