According to the national statistics compiled by researchers and the federal government, there is a grim academic future for the students in low-income urban and rural communities across the U.S. They have no more than a 50% chance of graduating from high school, and those who do graduate will perform at the level of eighth graders in high-income…

Much is written about teacher leaders and the impact they have in promoting and influencing change. This is a reflection from four teacher leaders from four secondary high schools of a rural, non-government system of schools as they seek to build a capacity in the learning and teaching of mathematics and science within their schools. The original…

Teacher leadership is difficult because teachers often lack encouragement and opportunities to implement ideas that deliberately and strategically interact with and tap power structures in schools. In this study, a book club of university faculty and middle school teachers provided teacher leaders with a template for change around concepts…

The purpose of this study was to explore the link between elementary principal work and teacher professional development in a setting of school change. It was a study of principals' purposeful behaviors and efforts as their school communities experienced curricular change or reform measures. It was not known to what extent the role of the…

Several recent studies have been conducted on teacher professional development (PD) but few have focused exclusively on elementary music teacher PD. Prominent music education researchers encourage additional research to provide generalizability across the field. In answer to this call for broadening the base of research in elementary music…

Teaching teams can hold the promise of being an ideal vehicle in which collaborative action research is conducted. This case documents the mixed results of a team leader's efforts to improve teaching and introduce inquiry-based professional development through action research in a community college. This case paints a realistic and…

To supplement the summer reading of National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) members, the NSTA Committee on Research in Science Education suggested a list of science education research articles that were published in the journals of NSTA's affiliates in 2012. These articles covered a variety of topics that include learning about…

Increasing student achievement is at the forefront of the school reform movement. Today's educators are called upon to raise academic standards to the highest level in history with common core standards that align with international benchmarks. One of the most rapidly-growing improvement efforts in today's schools is the development of…

In spring 2012, after a year of intensive data analysis and planning, the colleges participating in Completion by Design announced strategies for creating clear, structured routes through college for more students, often referred to as accelerated, structured pathways to completion. These strategies contain elements unique to each college, but all…

K-12 school reform movements over the past twenty-five years have grown in urgency as numerous schools in South Carolina and across the nation have failed to meet student needs. The urgency for reform was spurred by, "A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform," a report released by the National Commission on Excellence in…

Over the past decade, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Maryland has focused on improving teacher capacity as a strategy to address achievement gaps and promote "college-ready" standards in what has become an "urban suburb" with significant pockets of high-need students. As part of this focus on quality teaching, the…

In 2011, AISD worked with the nationally recognized New Teacher Center (NTC) to create a comprehensive survey to help the district to better understand how teachers and school staff feel about critical issues that can influence educator retention and effectiveness. This report provides a district summary of staff survey results. A separate report…

One of the most important things school systems can do to promote student achievement is to ensure that all students have effective teachers. Effective teachers may be particularly important for the most disadvantaged students. The U.S. Department of Education commissioned the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to create this report as a…

The purpose of this study was to discover the ways that central office and school level leaders initiate and advance a culture of continuous professional learning in high schools. The conceptual framework for this study was built from a synthesis of literature related to professional learning and leadership for continuous improvement. Relying…

The 2012 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education was designed to provide up-to-date information and to identify trends in the areas of teacher background and experience, curriculum and instruction, and the availability and use of instructional resources. A total of 7,752 science and mathematics teachers in schools across the United…