Professional development that improves teaching and student learning meets research-based standards to ensure high-quality educator learning experiences. Since the quality of professional learning affects its results, many states, districts, and schools want to measure the effectiveness of their professional development to make targeted…

This report examines the first generation of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Implementation and Dissemination Centers. It portrays the experiences of and captures the lessons learned in such a way that it informs the design of future centers. Ideas drawn from the discussions that took place at a conference held in Annapolis, Maryland…

Because discrepancies between individual needs and institutional roles are so often neglected in planning educational change, attention to this dimension may prove worthwhile. Evaluators who have omitted the evaluation of the effects of educational innovation on the total system--not just the students--may find it productive to assume this…

This essay explores the complex relationship between policy talk and institutional change in educational reform. Bursts of reform rhetoric must be distinguished from long-term trends in educational practice. The case study of a comprehensive reform effort helps illustrate why some kinds of reform last and others do not. (SLD)