Service-learning is promoted widely by professional organizations (NCSS, 2001), but often with little reflection on the nature of meaningful student participation and the impact of teacher leadership styles. The authors studied mixed-age "small school" advisory groups involved in service-learning at one elementary school; observational, interview,…

This longitudinal study examines the effects of a collaborative evaluation process on mathematics instruction and student outcomes in an elementary school serving a low-resource community. Thirty-two elementary teachers participated in a 3-year collaborative evaluation professional development process that contributed to improved mathematics…

Reforms in mathematics education call for K-12 teachers to employ standards-based pedagogies, which embody the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics' principles and standards. In order to effectively support teachers' implementation of standards-based curricula, professional development must be provided that meets teachers' needs. The…

One of the most important things school systems can do to promote student achievement is to ensure that all students have effective teachers. Effective teachers may be particularly important for the most disadvantaged students. The U.S. Department of Education commissioned the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to create this report as a…

Educational reform is not easy. As school leaders search for a format that leads to improvement on many fronts concurrently, data teams is one such promising practice. The data team design not only involves sensemaking of data as evidence of effective teaching and learning, but also builds a professional learning community, distributes leadership,…

This article represents a study in two parts, conducted by two researchers who were interested in learning about the level of implementation of Professional Learning Community (PLC) principles at six high schools. The researchers asked the basic questions: What is being learned about the early days of transition to a PLC? What are the changes that…

This report is the twenty-fifth in a series of surveys sponsored annually by MetLife since 1984 as a public service. This 25th anniversary edition includes the views of teachers, principals and students and looks back to the earliest MetLife Surveys to examine how perspectives on teachers, teaching and public education have changed. It documents…

This report summarizes the 2007-2008 program evaluation results of Austin Independent School District's high school professional learning communities initiative.

This paper presents the results of a study conducted to understand what took place in Project Math, a special program developed by teachers who were trained in the Accelerated Schools Project in a Southern school. The Accelerated Schools Project is a comprehensive model of school reform, designed to improve school experiences and achievement for…

Teacher leadership plays a significant role in the professional culture of many schools across the country, according to principals who value it. This is the major conclusion from a survey and telephone interviews conducted by the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL). While limited in scope, the study confirms the contributions of teacher…

Between 1996 and 1998, a team of teacher-consultants affiliated with the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project (KMWP), Georgia, used support from Project Outreach of the National Writing Project to develop a model for promoting teacher leadership within individual urban schools and for their writing project site as a whole. Their model is not a…