A highly competent teacher workforce is a necessary foundation for improving children's educational outcomes, especially for those who rely most on schools for their success. Yet in the United States, shortages in the teaching force have been growing across the country, reaching crisis proportions in some teaching fields--such as mathematics,…

To ensure that schools enjoy a steady supply of competent and committed teachers, federal, state, and local policymakers should look to the extensive research literature in this area, focusing on five strategies in particular: strengthening teacher preparation, improving hiring practices, increasing compensation, providing support for new…

Examines the use of educational indicators to serve educational policy ends, the potential benefits and dangers of various uses, and how to forge guidelines for appropriate relationships between indicators and policy. Indicators should not be used as administrative controls or policy levers, but to illuminate educational activities and processes…

This article explores the contributions of professionalism to school accountability in the context of a new phenomenon in American education: the professional development school. (IAH)

Several initiatives hold great promise to reform teaching: redesigning initial teacher preparation; rethinking professional development; and involving teachers in research, collaborative inquiry, and professional standard-setting. U.S. teachers need to emulate their European and Asian counterparts, who are better paid, prepared, and supported and…