For decades, teacher educators and others have looked critically at the way teachers are initially prepared and during the last ten years the calls for reform in teacher education have become even more frequent. Some programs have responded to those demands and made substantial and long lasting changes. This qualitative study reports on data…

This guidebook will help the staff members of education agencies gain an understanding of what Education Enterprise Architecture (EEA) is and how it can help an agency accomplish its vision and goals. The audiences for this guidebook include agency staff already charged with leading agency-wide planning and implementation that encompasses the…

Since the reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 2004, standards-based individualized education plans (IEPs) have been an expectation for serving students with disabilities in the K-12 public school setting. Nearly a decade after the mandates calling for standards-based IEPs, special educators still struggle…

Literature indicates that there is limited research on the national and organizational level decision processes to develop and deliver e-learning programs. In this paper, existing e-learning literature is analyzed in terms of national level factors (national culture, readiness for new technology, and infrastructure), organizational level factors…

In Phillip Schlechty's best-selling book "Working on the Work", he outlined a motivational framework for improving student performance by improving the quality of schools designed for students. "Engaging Students" offers a next-step resource in which Schlechty incorporates what he's learned from the field and from the hundreds of workshops he and…

Developing a model for effective large-scale continuous professional development (CPD) for teachers remains a significant obstacle for many governments worldwide. This article describes the development and evolution of Vital--a CPD program designed to enhance the teaching of information communication technology in state-funded primary and…

In this article I describe the context within which we developed project e-scape and the early work that laid the foundations of the project. E-scape (e-solutions for creative assessment in portfolio environments) is centred on two innovations. The first concerns a web-based approach to portfolio building; allowing learners to build their…

The American educational system has often been the whipping boy for the woes of the country. If there is a problem, education is deemed to most likely be at fault. A change in the marketplace, coupled with both the continuing social needs and social changes from the 1960s, left the educational system looking woefully derelict. Having fully…

Various approaches to the professional development school (PDS)--each designed for its respective audience, mission, and purpose for engagement--have shaped the professional development school effort during the past 25 years. Central to these approaches is improving teacher quality in the service of student learning. This provides direction for…

With 55 percent of the 53,400 students on free and reduced lunch programs, a 78 percent mobility rate, and a diverse population, Columbus City Schools (CCS) in Ohio faces the challenges common to other urban districts. In spite of the challenges, CCS has made a long-term commitment to engage students in high-quality physical education and physical…

This paper reveals how the provision of teacher professional development is conceptualised within the Australian Government Quality Teacher Programme (AGQTP) policy text and its predecessors, and uses these texts to infer the nature of the production practices associated with the development of these policies. The paper argues that multiple…

Periodic reexamination of existing professional development school forms is good practice to ascertain whether goals are being met. Such an assessment was sparked by a request from a superintendent in a 14-year-old professional development school structure at a public college in the Northeast. This assessment revealed that although the…

As a significant step in the consolidation of the importance of technology in education, the Flemish Government recently (September 2007) introduced a formal technology curriculum for schools. This compulsory curriculum replaces already existing but non-binding technology guidelines and is an important action in the Flemish policy of educational…

Whether to adopt national standards and tests has long been a subject of lively debate in the United States. With 47 states now participating in the Common Core State Standards Initiative, and a commitment from Education Secretary Arne Duncan to allocate hundreds of millions in stimulus funds to the development of common tests, the country is…

In at least 44 states across the country, students are logging in to learn at all times of the day and night--accessing courses they might otherwise be unable to take, interacting with students they might otherwise never know, and working with highly qualified teachers they otherwise could not access. In these and countless other ways, online…