As school district administrators, the authors have observed that too many beginning teachers struggle in their first few years. Questioning the quality of the university teacher preparation programs that supply a majority of their district's teachers, they decided to ask the new teachers themselves how well prepared they felt. A focus group with…

Responding to Joe Smith's unfavorable comments concerning Texas' alternative certification program in the November 1991 issue of "Educational Leadership," this article claims the Texas program is highly successful, thanks to school-university cooperation and closely supervised teacher interns. New Jersey's failures cannot be likened to…

The Ambassador Program, a partnership between Ferron Elementary School and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, pairs university students with at-risk elementary students once a week to serve as role models. (TE)

Of 1,700 homeless in Orange County, Florida, 40 percent are families. In 1988, a coalition of 34 agencies formed to address this challenge. A school district task force composed of community members, university student tutors, and key players from transportation services, pupil assignment, health services, Chapter 1, extended day, exceptional…

Nearly 2 million new teachers are projected to enter U.S. schools in the next decade. Currently, 30% of beginning teachers leave during their first five years. To support new teachers, schools should carefully consider novices' teaching schedules, cooperate with university training programs, and provide mentors. California's state-supported…

Describes the California Formative Assessment & Support System for Teachers, the largest state-supported instructional improvement effort. At the core of the program are mentoring relationships, new teaching standards, and formative assessment tools. Policy makers are setting new standards of teaching quality at the beginning of a teaching…

Seeking an afterschool program to help some fourth through sixth graders with reading, writing, and analysis, an Ohio elementary school formed a partnership with John Carol University, in Cleveland. Tutors were future teachers enrolled in a Reading-and-Writing-Across-the-Curriculum course; tutees were 25 children who needed either remedial work or…

Discusses the use of coaching to establish a communal learning effort among teachers and reinforce skills introduced through inservice. Issues examined include the length of coaching, who should coach, training coaches, coaching's effects, the relationships of evaluation and supervision to coaching, the principal's role, and implementation. (MCG)

A second-career, first-grade teacher tells how he flourished, thanks to the academic, social, and professional support offered by a partnership between DePaul University and a Glenview, Illinois district. Program hallmarks included full immersion in the classroom, mentored support, theory-practice integration, and ongoing evaluation. (MLH)

The City Montessori School, a private, nonprofit school in Luchnow, India, provides an exemplary education for K-12 students by focusing on both academic excellence and children's emotional and spiritual well-being. Four building blocks (universal values, excellence, global understanding, and service) are guiding principles for educating the whole…