As his district's director of equity and strategic engagement, Shomari Jones often hears the stories of the racism Black students and their families experience in schools. As a Black man representing a culturally white district, he is continually reminded of how the suffering of the past has persisted into the present. Jones and Paul Sutton…

State-level leaders face a difficult challenge of determining where to invest scarce professional learning dollars. To address this challenge, a team of researchers and state-level science educators surveyed teachers to learn more about their vision for science education and what kind of learning opportunities they preferred. The survey enabled…

Moving from a traditional school district to one that embraces a community schools model requires fundamental shifts in organizational structure and practices. Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation in southern Indiana and Vancouver Public Schools in Vancouver, Wash., are two districts that have navigated this change. Leaders from those…

Improving the quality of the teacher workforce is high on the nation's education policy agenda, but school systems continue to face difficulties in staffing STEM and special education classrooms with qualified teachers. This article documents the mismatch between the supply and demand of STEM and special education teachers in Washington State,…

The Gaylord case has significance for all educators concerned about their private lives. The immorality case against Gaylord was based on speculation. (Author/IRT)

The American people do not favor tax support for private or parochial schools. The issue of vouchers has been placed before the electorate 22 times since 1966, and the voters have rejected it 21 times. It makes little sense for state and national legislators to continue to press for unwanted programs. (MLH)

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is not going away. In fact, it might not even undergo more than minor modifications before it comes up for reauthorization in a couple of years. The nomination of Margaret Spellings to replace Rod Paige as U.S. secretary of education foretells not only a single-minded focus on test-based accountability but also an…

Three years ago, a coalition of three Washington State districts, Peninsula, Tacoma, and Issaquah, began cooperating to help one another implement programs and policies fostering a service ethic. This article describes each district's progress at implementing its Project Service Leadership program. (MLH)

In 1993 Columbia University's National Center for Restructuring Education collaborated with three educational reform organizations to encourage teacher dialogue about assessment reform via the Four Seasons Project. This article profiles three participating schools that use theory, ritual, textmaking, and networking to help teachers reconcile…

This description of a model program developed in Washington State for improving teachers' classroom effectiveness includes an outline of the program's 15-step process and its three key concepts--involvement, ownership, and commitment--followed by discussions of resource people and the program's two-day problem-solving retreat. (JBM)

Publicly supported public/private educational choice can succeed if states and federal government passed legislation that immediately extends all regulations affecting public schools to all private schools receiving public funds. Applying the same extension to new regulations and statutes may be more feasible. This article illustrates by…