Effective school leaders use a variety of strategies-- including creating opportunities for teachers to learn from each other--to encourage and support teachers in achieving greater excellence in the classroom. "Teachers teaching teachers" is a concept that can pay real dividends when it focuses on ways to engage and motivate students to perform…

Although the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) has been certifying teachers since 1993, a mere 16,035 U.S. teachers out of approximately 3,000,000 have achieved National Board certification as of November 2001. The NBPTS is at the cutting edge of standards-based teacher assessment and is a process administrators should…

The National Writing Project (NWP) at Work monograph series describes NWP work, often shared informally or in workshops through the NWP network, and offers detailed chronological accounts for sites interested in adopting and adapting the models. The New York City Writing Project (NYCWP), with over 20 years of inservice experience, has learned that…

This paper explains the importance of new teacher induction programs to help beginning teachers successfully transition to the classroom and remain in teaching. Such programs use different activities to orient, support, train, and assess teachers within their first 3 years of teaching. Activities include orientation, mentoring, staff development,…

Great teachers make a profound difference in the lives of children. Each of us can remember the personal qualities of a great teacher whose influence stretches into our adulthood--or who gave our own children a solid start in life. But these elusive qualities are hard to measure. It's even harder to use them to predict who will become a great…

This paper introduces the concept of total teacher effectiveness for facilitating educational reform and improvement, using target oriented curriculum (TOC) change in Hong Kong as an example. TOC change is a complex process that involves preparing, changing, and reinforcing teachers in multiple domains at multiple levels. Teacher effectiveness…

This paper seeks to answer three basic questions related to the use of teaching portfolios in faculty evaluation and development: (1) "What is a teaching portfolio?"; (2) "How can the teaching portfolio be used to document and facilitate teaching?"; and (3) "How can teaching portfolios be assessed?" The teaching portfolio is seen as encouraging…

Substitute teachers are responsible for over 1 full year of every child's education, but research shows that only 10 percent of school districts provide more than 2 hours of substitute teacher training, and 53 percent of school districts provide no training. There is a tremendous need to implement effective training programs that will ultimately…

This report documents a process developed and used by the South-Eastern Regional Vision for Education (SERVE) to guide 12 districts in Georgia through the planning and development of a school-improvement plan. Ultimately, a total of 35 schools successfully completed plans during the study. Each school developed a plan for school improvement to be…

Motivated by education reform and state-mandated inservice training, New Jersey's Montclair Public School District created a staff development model that uses teachers as resources for their own professional growth. This model utilizes the expertise of an elementary math, intermediate language arts, and secondary science teacher in the formation…

This study examined the level of professional community in seven urban elementary schools that served large proportions of low-income students and that had engaged in innovative, schoolwide professional development and reform. The study points out to what extent and in what ways professional development at each school addressed professional…

This report provides 10 guiding principles for aligning school spending with the goal of creating a system of high-performing schools: (1) It is necessary to recognize that money matters--"you get what you pay for" applies to schools; (2) Aligning school spending to the goals of high performance requires investing in those things that…

Recruiting and retaining good teachers ranks as one of the most significant roadblocks to solving the preschool quality crises facing the country. Evidence points to the low wages and benefits offered to preschool teachers as the single most important factor in hiring and keeping good teachers. This policy brief examines what is known about the…

Research shows that preschool produces the strongest effects when teachers are well qualified. Noting that most Head Start preschool teachers do not hold even the minimum teaching degrees required to teach kindergarten, this policy brief looks at the costs of putting highly qualified teachers in Head Start classrooms to improve the effectiveness…

This videotape describes the impact of National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification within North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. It begins with the story of an at-risk student who attributes his success to having had an NBPTS certified teacher in 5th grade. The teacher tutored him, paired him with a mentor,…