To create a coaching culture, school leaders have to make it a priority and support coaching at every level, and continuously. This article offers five "dos" and four "don'ts" for school leaders on how to support coaching at their schools, highlighting topics such as professional development for coaches, scheduling time for…

Teachers in high-poverty schools often feel stressed and fatigued. We might expect that if we ask these teachers to take on even more work by meeting regularly in collaborative improvement teams, they will respond with skepticism, even resentment. But in a study of 83 teachers in six outstanding high-poverty schools, these researchers found the…

Most teachers find it difficult to achieve a balance between their work lives and their personal lives. Today, technology and increasing connectivity make maintaining this delicate balance more challenging than ever. Because learning is no longer limited to a certain time or place, connected educators face an interesting dilemma: When, and how…

Co-­teaching is the newest initiative to be implemented in school districts. Students with special needs can no longer be simply physically "included" in general education classes. These students need and deserve authentic opportunities to access and participate in the curriculum. To accomplish this goal, co-­teaching has been embraced.…

When schools face budget cuts, they too often cut seemingly nonessential services in an effort to keep existing structures intact. Calvo and Miles suggest that it might be better to rethink the existing structures and find ways to reallocate staff and instructional time. They examine two school that have taken this approach, focusing their efforts…

In a time of resource challenges, many educators see the cost of expanding learning time as a barrier. However, with at least 1,000 schools across the United States currently expanding learning time, data show that schools can implement the approach cost effectively. Expanded learning time schools manage three levers that both build quality…

By offering teachers and parents a vision of an alternative structure, an effective summer program can stimulate change during the school year. The Southern Coalition for Educational Equity created such a program in New Orleans, Louisiana, for underachieving minority students. Focus was on effective instruction, increased student participation,…

Describes a Time Awareness Program initiated at a Kansas City, Missouri, elementary school to address time wastage problems involved with starting the day, changing subjects, and attending assemblies. The key to successful learning is to allow teachers to teach all day without breaking the teaching/learning cycle. (MLH)

Now that regular elementary classroom teachers must plan their lessons around special "pull-out" programs, their responsibilities are compounded and their control over instructional time considerably diminished. This article discusses the benefits of parallel block scheduling as a possible solution. Includes seven endnotes. (MLH)

Author offers suggestions for broadening the scope of education and educator. (RK)

Advises educators to stop peering through the rearview mirror of first-wave reform aimed at increasing accountability and raising standards, and confront the second wave's exciting new agenda featuring individual schools as decision-makers, a more collegial, personalized school environment, flexible time use, and an emphasis on higher-order…

Interviews with inner-city adolescents about school-reform efforts and the qualities of a good teacher. Students identify six qualities of good teachers: Push students, maintain order, willing to help, explain until everyone understands, vary classroom activities, and try to understand students. (PKP)