This policy brief is the first in a series of in-depth case studies exploring how top-performing charter schools have incorporated civic learning in their school curriculum and school culture. This paper introduces Democracy Prep, a network of seven public charter schools with a civic mission at its core. Democracy Prep's founder and…

Home visiting is one tool used to prevent child abuse and improve child well-being by providing education and services in families' homes through parent education and connection to community resources. This toolkit provides state policymakers and advocates with strategies for extending and expanding access to state- or federally-funded home…

This article reports on the development and implementation of a Career and Technical Education (CTE) Program in a county jail system in New York State. The program is funded through the Carl D. Perkins Career & Technical Education Act, which reserves a pocket of funds for individuals in county correctional institutions. This program integrated…

Teacher leadership is "hard." Many of the reasons are obvious: Teaching is a highly labor-intensive profession to begin with, leaving little downtime for work with other adults. School schedules are notoriously stingy with space for adult collaboration. Teachers are rarely paid to exercise leadership; when they are, they are never paid…

Scholars have provided numerous critical analyses of the structural causes of poverty. Unfortunately, many teachers are still led to believe, via best selling books and mainstream discourse, that behaviors, neighborhoods, and families determine educational outcomes. This "culture of poverty" theory must be disproved; educators need to be…

Recent research as well as local, state, and national mandates promote an increased role of technology in teaching and learning. In response to this call, K-12 institutions and colleges of education are faced with preparing current and future teachers to teach with technology. The current models of inservice and preservice teacher preparation with…

In 1973, the founding administrator of a Long Island high school proposed adoption of a student advisory system, team teaching in the humanities, and no academic department chairs. Convinced that having chairs diminished teachers' stature, this principal successfully encouraged teachers to work together to develop curriculum, prepare budgets, hire…

One of the most important provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is the requirement that all teachers of core academic subjects be "highly qualified" by the end of school year 2005-2006. Key principles for recruiting and preparing future teachers have been identified as raising academic standards for teachers and lowering…

Driven by Goals 2000 legislation, partnerships involving schools, businesses, and universities are preparing students for technically sophisticated workplaces. The Kids at Work project initiated by Project SMART (Science/Mathematics Applied Resources for Teaching) is a New York State validated approach to improving elementary math and science…

The Mathematics-Science Integration Project is a continuation of an ongoing series of inservice workshops oriented towards the professional development of elementary school teachers and early secondary school mathematics and science teachers. The teachers served by this project included 75 elementary school teachers, 35 middle/junior high school…

This book discusses the challenges to developing a teaching force that is competent to work with immigrant students, arguing that professional development should be re-thought and teacher educators should move far beyond traditional inservice and teacher training. A framework is developed for considering what teachers of immigrant youth need to…

This report examines the current status of federal and state involvement in educational personnel development. First, it describes the federal legislative process, and offers a list of members of Congressional committees dealing with education legislation. Next, it analyzes involvement of the U.S. Office of Education and of individual states in…

The documents enclosed in this report provide a comprehensive and systematic review of the progress made in developing a network organization capable of supporting nanoscience education for the public on a national scale. There is a logic to the studies that were done and to the reports that are included in this notebook. The following are the…

This report is based on a three-year study of the design of New York's Regional Network Strategy and its subsequent implementation activities, including the development of statewide professional development for members of the network involved in the state's strategy. The study is based on the idea that internal coherence--alignment and shared…

This paper offers highlights from the final report of Stanford's School Leadership Study, which should be available in January 2007. It discusses various policy and resource factors that enhance or impede the implementation of exemplary programs that develop and support principals. Among the research questions that guided this study were a set…