Policy shapes practice, and the increasingly important realm of professional development is no exception. In order to identify effective professional development policies and strategies, a Stanford University research team examined the policy frameworks supporting high levels of professional development activity in four states. The…

As mathematics educators think about teaching that promotes students' opportunities to learn, attention must be given to the conceptualization of the professional development of teachers and those who teach teachers. In this article, we generalize and expand the instructional triangle to consider different interactions in a variety of teacher…

The focus on the achievement gap for minority students is an issue facing many school districts across the county. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation highlighted the fact that many minority students are not achieving at or above expected levels in classrooms across America. Teacher quality is found to be an important ingredient of a…

Few researchers support the belief that a school superintendent can drive improvements in student achievement. The Science and Mathematics Achievement Required for Tomorrow (SMART) Consortium was formed in northeast Ohio in 1998 with the belief that superintendents can have a measurable effect on student learning. The goal of this collaboration…

High-quality teaching is the most significant school-related factor in helping students make significant gains in learning or achievement. Students who have effective teachers year after year routinely make more progress than other students. This is why every child must experience great teaching every day. For this to occur, teachers must have…

This study describes assessment results from the Distance Education Mentoring Program (DEMP) at Purdue University Calumet, Indiana, USA. The program, sponsored by the university's Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, was made available to all teaching faculty who wished to become proteges and develop their skills at teaching online courses. The…

While there has been substantial research studying the factors that influence teachers' career decisions, there is far less literature on the relationship between teacher effectiveness, mobility, and attrition. In the paper "Teacher Effectiveness, Mobility, and Attrition in Florida: A Descriptive Analysis," Martin West and Matthew…

The field of self-study of teaching and teacher education practices, like a number of other areas of inquiry, appears negligent in paying intellectual debt to Joseph Schwab who revolutionalized the fields of curriculum and teaching in the 1970s with his ideas about the practical. In this article, I trace my personal journey of coming to know…

The 20-year partnership between Boston University and the school district of Chelsea, Massachusetts, came to an official end in June 2008. Although the partnership is by many measures successful, the continued success of the district will depend on how well Boston University is able to share with stakeholders management techniques and the…

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…

Because they focus on the quality of instruction, teacher evaluations can be powerful catalysts for teacher and school improvement. But today, the typical teacher evaluation consists of a single, fleeting classroom visit by an administrator untrained in evaluation. Often he or she wields a checklist of classroom conditions and teacher behaviors…

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) can bring a wide range of benefits--for children, parents and society at large. However, these benefits are conditional on "quality". Expanding access to services without attention to quality will not deliver good outcomes for children or long-term productivity benefits for society. This new publication…

Schools are implementing new and effective strategies in an effort to graduate 90 percent of students and to ensure that graduates are prepared to succeed in college, advanced training and work. This newsletter describes how schools have redesigned their schedules, organizational structures and cultures in an effort to graduate 90 percent of…

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have been held up as powerful structures for teachers' continuing professional development. In this work, the author has applied transformative learning theory to highlight the psychic risks of collaborative teacher learning, as well as the need for practical efforts to improve student learning--the means…

This document is a Problem Based Learning project addressing the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the achievement gap issue that lingers in public education. It centers on the ideas of cultural sensitivity as a means of educating all students in an era of accountability. The goal of the project was to address the problem of minority student…