The following comment was inspired by an English teacher at Health Sciences High & Middle College in San Diego, California: "There's still a question on the table. How can we get our students to read more and better? They read what they have to, and they're doing OK, but how do we ensure that they are ready for what comes after high…

A randomized trial study, conducted over two school years in 18 high schools in Washington, finds that "An Inquiry Approach," a three-year, educative curriculum for high school science, has a positive impact on student achievement, teacher practice, and fidelity of implementation of the curriculum when the curriculum is paired with…

Effective and authentic communities of practice in schools have the potential to support teachers in improving their instructional practices around perennial challenges, such as improving the literacy skills of all students. But before they can achieve such goals, communities of practice take time to build, effort to sustain, and ongoing support…

Rather than just teach students facts about history, high school social studies teacher Amy Presley searched for ways to create meaningful experiences they would remember forever. This article describes how she found a group of social studies educators using a Twitter hashtag as a way to share resources and improve her teaching skills. Energized…

Saskatoon Public Schools made the decision 10 years ago to undertake major changes in how it supports professional learning. The district began with two major priorities: increasing literacy in elementary schools and transforming high schools to increase student engagement. The district appointed a facilitator for each priority in central office,…

There are two types of school leadership initiatives. One takes existing leaders and gives them increasing leadership responsibilities. The other engages in an organic process that grows leaders from a crop of teachers who, at first may not appear to be leaders at all. This article presents a story about the second type of initiative and how it…

This article tells the story of transformation at Liberty High School in Eldersburg, Maryland. Feedback from teachers, both informal and formal, was largely negative. Teachers said there was little application to their daily interactions with students and felt that their engagement was limited to simply showing up. They expressed a desire to…

High school students who are not proficient readers struggle in content classes and often do not graduate from high school. However, they have promise to do so with well-designed and implemented reading curriculum and effective instruction. Without it, they may have difficulty competing in the global workplace (Gordon & Oliva, 2012). One…

This article presents a plan to create a united approach to improve high quality instruction in Robbinsdale Cooper High School in New Hope, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Professional learning communities were in their infancy, conversations around data were about autopsies of annual standardized tests, and there was no description of what…

This article describes an initiative designed to improve the content-area literacy skills of all students at a Massachusetts high school and to demonstrate the important role teacher leaders play in bridging the various elements of school improvement efforts. Meeting students' language and literacy needs within content-area classrooms is becoming…

E.A. Johnson High School is located in Mt. Morris, Michigan, near Flint, where the city has felt deeply the impact of the area's economic decline. 72% of the student population qualify for free and reduced lunch. The staff was willing to make the changes necessary for success, but needed more than a book study. Many of the structures for…

Through learning communities, schools can change to strengthen educator practice and improve student learning outcomes. So can districts. For 20 years, the authors have helped states, districts, and schools in the United States and Canada implement Whole-Faculty Study Groups, a design for learning communities. During the 2010-11 school year, they…

A teacher can be the most important resource in a school. When the teacher's attitude derives from asset-based thinking, positive impact can occur for both teacher and student. Asset-based thinking is defined as "a way of viewing reality." Those who embrace this model approach things from a positive as opposed to a negative perspective.…

While teachers face new expectations for student learning and more equitable educational outcomes, instruction and assessment remain rooted in traditional approaches that are largely inequitable, culturally irrelevant, and intellectually disengaging, contributing to gaps in academic achievement across student groups (Darling-Hammond, 2010; King…

Adopting new curricula presents both a need and an opportunity for professional development to advance teacher content knowledge and instructional practices for achieving curriculum-specific student outcomes. This study examines two modalities of professional development: face-to-face in a summer workshop and online that included two days of…