Teachers have historically been at the margins of educational improvement, and they are just beginning to drive improvements in the profession. Networked improvement communities (NICs) are one approach for collective reprofessionalization of teaching, where practice is defined and managed by practitioners. Edit Khachatryan and Emma Parkerson offer…

The author lays out guidelines and suggestions for how teachers can actually become policy leaders, taken from his book, "The Cage-Busting Teacher" (Harvard Education Press, 2015). Teachers serious about leadership can get the ear of policy makers by leveraging their positional and moral authority--though they may need to be persistent…

The original vision of a charter school called for heavy doses of professional teacher contribution throughout all aspects of curriculum and administration. Unfortunately, that is not how charter schools have evolved. Until now. The Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools is the first union-sponsored entity created for the sole purpose of…

Data from a recent study show that investing in science teachers' professional growth and teaching ability is a wise choice. However, the professional development must have the right content (the science discipline that teachers are actually teaching), at the right time (when they are assigned to teach that science discipline), and in a stable…

Education by charter is a model for restructuring school districts that promotes long-term, continuing educational improvement. Groups of teachers can request funds directly from the school board to implement specific instructional programs. The usual administrative layers between teachers and school boards are nonexistent. Charter life cycles and…

Describes the San Jose (California) Teacher Involvement Project which included teachers in building-level decision making on instructional matters. (IRT)

Management and teacher leaders in Livermore (California) have turned to integrative bargaining as a means of resolving conflict and negotiating contracts. Integrative bargaining reduces the adversarial relations characteristic of the industrial relations model of collective bargaining. (WD)

The Irish education system is a privatized, state-funded patchwork, with five separate types of secondary schools whose governance structures vary according to church, state, or local authority ownership. A 1995 government white paper recommends a more coherent governance structure with state, regional, and school-site decision-making levels.…

California's Round Valley School District has instituted a merit pay program that calls for teacher initiative and cooperation, school board involvement, a limited evaluative role for principals, confidentiality of awards, substantial financial incentives, and open debate over the program's features. (PGD)

The National Education Association's approach to improving public education is founded on John Dewey's vision of democratic schooling and rational decision making, as the experience of Pinellas County, Florida, shows. This article describes the district's efforts to implement the Mastery in Learning project, a shared decision-making model.…

Recounts the difficulties of establishing a shared decision-making model at an elementary school used to more authoritarian governance. In another school more familiar with participative methods, this principal deemphasized administrative perfectionism and maintained team management by acknowledging the value of controlled conflict and modeling…

As applied at Lincoln Elementary School in Evansville (Indiana), the Teacher-Directed Inservice Education Program allowed teachers to direct their own learning by contracting for consultation during regular school hours to meet specific needs. The program meets seven guidelines suggested for effective inservice education, including administrator…

Cincinnati (Ohio) Public Schools have exchanged their confrontational approach to contract negotiation for a more collaborative relationship among the teacher union, the school board, and the central office. This article explains how harmony was achieved in a difficult situation. Teachers benefited by gaining access to policy-making opportunities.…

Project SHAPE is a two-year intervention and enrichment program for underachieving and educationally disadvantaged ninth and tenth graders at Scott High School, in Toledo, Ohio. Student problems are addressed through a systematic program of structural reorganization, teacher empowerment, curriculum development, and the involvement of students,…

Using teachers' professional development as its central strategy, California's Middle Grades Mathematical Renaissance project aims to transform its mathematics program so that all students become empowered mathematically. This article discusses key questions concerning the program's resources, strategies, leadership roles, and monitoring…