Lecturers exert a potent influence over the achievement of all students, low-income culturally diverse students in particular. Although recent research has confirmed that lecturer involvement is critical for promoting academic engagement of low-income and ethnically diverse students in America and other countries, other literature suggests that…

The literature on teacher retention is abundant, yet the focus on new teachers themselves is limited. This research study provides a detailed description of what beginning teachers reported made them want to stay at one middle school with a 100% teacher retention rate over four consecutive years. This study employed qualitative methodology.…

This paper reports partial findings of a qualitative interpretive study of female secondary school English language teachers' perceptions of curriculum change in the United Arab Emirates. The sample consisted of 16 female teachers in three secondary schools who had experience teaching the former and the current English language curricula. Data…

Professional experience is a field increasingly defined by institutionally prescribed practices and outcomes. However, for the pre-service teacher, at an individual level, it is commonly navigated through complex and diverse experiences that for them may defy coherence. What is publicly shared is filtered frequently through a pre-service teacher's…

The effectiveness of outside experts in professional development in Jewish schools has been questioned in light of scholarly critique of this approach. This case study examines the sociocultural context of one such long-term project aimed at school improvement through early childhood (EC) curriculum development. The research identifies cultural…

The aim of this study is to understand the design of professional development programmes in teacher-based and context-based chemistry curriculum innovations. Firstly, the goals of these programmes are discussed and related to the concept of empowerment. Next, in a selection of empirical studies, four general strategies for professional development…

A collaborative school-based intervention aimed at modifying relationships among administrators and teachers was implemented in three middle and junior high schools. Across the intervention schools, teachers were active collaborators in identifying problems and then articulating and implementing customized interventions to redress those problems.…

Teachers who are positive deviants are the most effective teachers, able to produce results and solutions to problems that others in the learning community cannot. As a result, students in their classrooms usually produce assessment scores that are higher than those of students in their colleagues' classrooms. Teachers willing to learn from their…

There is a persistent and significant gap in the achievement of students who attend high-poverty schools and those who attend low-poverty schools. Students in high-poverty schools, the majority of whom are African American and Hispanic, are not achieving the same levels of academic success as their low-poverty or White counterparts. Retention…

There were two purposes of this dissertation. The first purpose was to determine the level of physical educator empowerment who teach in an inclusive physical education environment compared to the level of physical educator empowerment who teach in a noninclusive physical education environment. The second purpose was to compare the level of…

This publication highlights the Reading First program as the academic cornerstone of the No Child Left Behind Act, and cites state achievement data indicating that Reading First students from nearly every grade and subgroup have made gains in reading proficiency. Restoration of full funding for the program has been requested for Fiscal Year 2009.

The purpose of this study was to investigate teacher retention and teachers' perceptions of cultural leadership in select North Carolina elementary year round and traditional elementary schools. The participants in this study were North Carolina elementary teachers that participated in the 2008 North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions Survey…

The study reported here focused on comparing teachers' actual and desired participation in different decision-making situations and examined how participation in decision making differs in Indian higher educational institutions. The paper provides a comparison of findings with similar studies conducted in Western settings regarding the…

Teacher retention is a persistent issue that impacts school improvement. The retention and attrition of both new and experienced teachers is quite challenging for administrators throughout school districts, particularly in large urban schools. While it is reasonable that some degree of teacher turnover in schools is inevitable, the exiting of…

"Possessing openness to emerging technologies is critical for teachers in the technology-rich 21st Century as technology continues to accelerate at a rapid rate. Readiness for new technologies is a challenge associated with change. Teachers who resist change may impede and/or limit their students' learning and skills. Teachers, therefore,…