A national survey of school districts last fall by the Center on Education Policy found that fewer than half of the districts had planned professional development aligned to the Common Core State Standards this school year. The challenge of getting the nation's 3.2 million K-12 public school teachers ready to teach to the standards is enormous.…

South Dakota's Spearfish School District used a comprehensive approach to its educators' professional development to integrate technology into instructional practices. In 1998, the Spearfish School District's budget for professional development more than doubled for each of the next five years, funds coming from the South Dakota Learning…

Around the world, the importance of education to individual and societal success has increased at a breathtaking pace as a new knowledge-based economy has emerged. As a consequence, most countries have been engaged in intensive reforms of their education systems, and many have focused especially on improving teacher education, recognizing that…