Each August, teachers from around the state gather for the Arizona K-12 Center's Tech Camp, a week-long immersion in technology for the classroom. The Arizona K-12 Center's mission is to improve teaching and learning in Arizona's schools through high-quality professional development and teacher leadership. The formula Tech Camp follows is a simple…

Sustaining results-oriented team efforts is hard work, and achieving diversified solutions to complex issues over time requires commitment an creativity. To support the momentum of learning communities, this book provides an illustrated collection of ready-to-use tools and examples of plans in action for results-oriented faculty and staff.…

"Teachers are leaders when they function in professional communities to affect student learning; contribute to school improvement; inspire excellence in practice; and empower stakeholders to participate in educational improvement" (Childs-Bowen, Moller, & Scrivner, 2000, p. 28). Enhancing teacher leadership can help schools and districts reach the…

The Washington Initiative (WI) was created in 2001 as an effort to help strengthen education reform in Washington by addressing teacher quality. The major strategies of the WI were to increase the number of teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and to support the leadership of these teachers in local…

In this age of high accountability, teacher quality is receiving more attention than ever before. Research that investigates ways to increase teacher quality is much needed, making this study a timely addition to the literature. Although increases in student achievement related to teacher quality have yet to be adequately documented, the research…

This study investigated how the Accelerated Schools Project (ASP) school restructuring model fostered the capacity for teachers to become leaders, noting improvements that happened as a result of teachers becoming leaders. Data came from three rural ASP schools attended by low socioeconomic status PreK-6 students. Interviews with teachers and the…

The San Francisco Math Leadership Project was started in 1984 as one of the sites of the California Mathematics Project. During the past 15 years, nearly 500 elementary and middle level classroom teachers participated by attending a year long program which included an intensive summer institute and during the year activities. One goal was to…

In this study, 12 teachers enrolled in professional-development schools describe how they reconceptualized leadership while gaining new experiences, confidence, and professional identities when working with school and university colleagues. Emerging teacher leaders developed approaches for redistributing power, authority, responsibility, and…

This article discusses the lack of female teachers in leadership positions. In 1988, The National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) commissioned a study to address the administrator shortage. They found that the top three reasons candidates gave for not applying…

Everyone agrees that teachers' voices should be heard in their schools. But what does that mean? And how can teachers' voices be used to improve student learning? In this article, the author offers insights from his experience with the League of Professional Schools. As a result of the teacher empowerment movement that began in the mid-1980s and…

A close relationship between teaching quality and student achievement is documented by a steady flow of research since the early 1990s. A cutting-edge rural school is tapping the talent of its National Board-certified teachers to transform teaching and learning.

Some of the great urban teachers believe that it is their job to make sure that all students succeed. The different strategies used by teachers to help students in achieving their goals are discussed.

Teacher education professors help perspective teachers recognize the benefits of membership in NCTE and its affiliates. Though young people continue to join the faculties, many grieve the graying of the organization because they need to be preparing for their leadership successors.

Discusses how local school leaders construct the conditions for professional community in their schools. Arguing that professional community is a special form of social capital resulting in part from the design and implementation of facilitating structural networks by instructional leaders in schools. (SLD)

The concept and practice of teacher leadership have gained momentum in the past two decades. Teachers are assuming more leadership functions at both instructional and organizational levels of practice. Empirical literature reveals numerous small-scale, qualitative studies that describe dimensions of teacher leadership practice, teacher leader…