First introduced in 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) has evolved over time, emphasizing education reform priorities that mirror the changing national education policy conversation. The most recent iteration of ESEA, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), was enacted in 2001. It emphasized improving outcomes for…

For decades, investments in public education have boosted U.S. productivity and earnings, forged a path out of poverty for many families, helped disadvantaged students narrow the learning gap with their peers, and developed a workforce that continues to be among the most productive and innovative on Earth. More recently, this engine of growth has…

This publication focuses on professional development, a key element of school reform. In order to improve instruction and learning, schools need to increase the capacity of teachers to promote academic excellence in their classrooms. As part of their school and district plans, educators need to include professional development for teachers that is…

The Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) supports projects that are designed to reform teacher and principal compensation. Initially, the Department of Education (the Department) made two rounds of awards, in 2006 and 2007, to a total of 34 grantees. The specific goals of TIF were to reward teachers and principals for improving student achievement,…

High Point Regional High School may be the first high school in New Jersey, and possibly the nation, to offer programs that satisfy nearly all of the technology education content standards represented in "Standards for Technological Literacy: Content for the Study of Technology." The technology content standards were the school's…

Our nation is squandering one of its most important resources--our best teachers--and children are paying the price. We asked a simple question: "Will our nation's bold efforts to recruit more top teachers and remove the least effective teachers put a great teacher in every classroom?" We ran the numbers and discovered a disappointing…

Most recently a number of school districts, with support from growing numbers of philanthropic foundations, have been honing in on the strategic management of human capital(SMHC)--which has been defined as "the acquisition, development, performance management and retention of top talent." Granted, over the last two decades policymakers and…

A generational transition is occurring in U.S. public school classrooms. Baby Boom teachers (those born between 1946 and 1964) are approaching retirement age, and many of their colleagues from Generation X (those born between 1965 and 1976) are entering their mid-career stage. The newest generation in the teaching workforce is Generation Y (those…

Federal policy directed to teaching and teachers is the subject of this review, which is organized around: (1) recruitment; (2) training; (3) accountability; (4) incentives; (5) qualifications; (6) class size reduction; (teacher working conditions; and (8) human resource management and the overall coordination of teacher policy. For each theme,…

Many urban schools struggle to retain their best teachers because of challenging work environments, poor salaries, and ineffective school leadership. The additional requirements of the No Child Left Behind legislation for teachers to be highly qualified and the increased academic requirements of raising students to a proficient level in reading…

Ever since reform, opening up, and the development of the market economy, teacher attrition has reached an alarming proportion. In Liaoning province, more than 6,300 or 50 percent of the teachers either took early retirement or changed careers between 1979 and 1985. As a result, secondary and elementary schools in some regions have not been able…

The relationship between the professional formation of beginning teachers, education reforms and Hong Kong's free-market economy is explored. An overview of educational change and then beginning teachers' professional formation within the context of economic cycles provides a contextual background against which two research projects are…

Our education system is one of our nation's most precious resources. It is failing to recruit and retain the brightest people in the teaching profession. This article suggests two major problems that need correcting before other problems can be solved.

This year's "Quality Counts" report, the 15th edition of this annual report produced through the joint efforts of the "Education Week" newsroom and the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, arrives at a time of continued fiscal anxiety and education policy ferment in the wake of what has been widely described as the…

California's budget crisis jeopardizes the progress made in strengthening the teaching workforce. The threat of impending teacher layoffs will weaken the teacher preparation pipeline and affect the state's ability to attract and retain thousands of teachers it can't afford to lose. If California is to remain committed to strengthening student…