Annually, the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) collects, analyzes, and reports to the Governor and Legislature on disciplinary infractions and their consequences, as reported by school districts, to meet the requirements of the Public School Safety Law, N.J.S.A. 18A:17-46 through 48. This report includes statewide information on…

Literature finds mentoring to be a substantive, enduring practice in widespread arena, and among the attributes associated with career success and satisfaction. This paper provides a tangible mentoring model that has been operational for several years, and which applies what the literature proscribes to higher education academic settings. The…

Charter schools see as many as one in four teachers leave annually, and recent evidence attributes much of this turnover to provisions affected by collective bargaining processes and state laws such as salary, benefits, job security, and working hours. There have been many recent efforts to improve teacher voice in charter schools (Kahlenberg…

Teacher leaders are teachers who aspire to stretch beyond their classrooms to engage in leadership roles that take many shapes and forms, both "informal" and "formal". These teachers view the school as a whole, see the "big picture" and focus on how they can help improve aspects of the school to result in increases in…

To keep pace with accelerating technology and workplace expectations, high school and technology center students need access to high-level programs and courses that open the doors to further education and careers. The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) and nine states have launched a far-reaching program to provide rigorous and relevant…

Although a growing body of research points to the critical need to foster reading, writing, speaking, and critical thinking skills for students in order to ensure their success in college, careers, and life, these efforts have tended to focus more on developing literacy skills in the early years, often ignoring secondary students. The outcome has…

Policy shapes practice, and the increasingly important realm of professional development is no exception. In order to identify effective professional development policies and strategies, a Stanford University research team examined the policy frameworks supporting high levels of professional development activity in four states. The…

With the state's latest preschool expansion initiative, New Jersey public schools have an opportunity to help reach thousands of additional young children who will ultimately reap the educational rewards of a high-quality preschool program. In those districts that do not already provide preschool, administrators will themselves become students as…

Can a capacity building policy encourage school leaders to engage in professional development that will increase their focus on student achievement and understanding of instructional leadership? To explore this issue, school administrators were interviewed and a content analysis of plans for professional development generated during the first year…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore how teacher leaders help teachers improve mathematics and science teaching. Design/methodology/approach: Research focused on a purposive sample of seven teacher leaders selected to vary in their time allocated to teacher leader work and their content knowledge. Each teacher leader was interviewed, as were two…

This paper examines how Head Start and state pre-kindergarten programs can work together to better serve young children and their families. It focuses on two of the several models of early childhood education, acknowledging that these programs are just one piece of a fully integrated system of early care and education for children from birth until…

In the past few years, numerous states have initiated school improvement programs. These programs have included any or all of the following characteristics: (1) teacher and administrator certification and competency tests; (2) school-based planning; (3) staff development; (4) student assessment; (5) revised curricula and instructional strategies;…

The report describes a 2-year project that tested new approaches to helping workers better their lives and promote their careers by advancing their education. Through the cooperative efforts of industrial management and labor unions in Middlesex County in New Jersey, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Industry, with the assistance of the Labor…

If professional learning communities offer opportunities for improving the teaching and learning process, then developing strong professional development school (PDS) partnerships establish an appropriate framework for that purpose. PDS partnerships, however, can be less than effective without proper planning and discussion about the aims of those…

In 1988, Research for Better Schools (RBS) proposed the development of state-specific rural assistance councils (RAC) in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania to assist in strengthening rural school-community partnerships and in planning rural school improvement. This report summarizes the activities of each of the four RACs during…