This mixed-methods study used an online survey and interviews to explore perceptions of 21 first-year faculty in the Wisconsin Technical College System to determine which professional development activities were important to their teaching needs and concerns and whether there were differences between occupational and general education faculty.…

The leadership-for-learning project described in this article is supported by a grant from the Wallace Foundation and implemented through a partnership of faculty in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and faculty at two other universities in the state, the Department of Public…

Federal policy around supervision and evaluation has prompted state action to develop new evaluation systems to increase student achievement. Systems, such as the Framework for Educator Effectiveness implemented in Wisconsin, are tied to teacher performance as well as student achievement. This type of performance-based evaluation system relies on…

With strong connection to schoolwide policy and vision and to the realities of the daily life of teachers and students, the department chair is uniquely positioned to play an important role in advancing instructional effectiveness (Printy, 2008; Weller, 2001). This article provides an in-depth look at the efforts of three urban comprehensive high…

This project utilized descriptive methodology to examine the research question, how is technology being used in the classroom, as perceived by public school teachers in Milwaukee during early 21st century? In order to fully analyze this question, both quantitative and qualitative data were utilized. The researcher developed a survey for the…

Hispanic and Latino students are regarded as one of the most uneducated and educationally at-risk and disadvantaged groups in the United States, yet few studies have focused on teaching and learning in classrooms where they are making significant academic gains due to high quality teachers. Current research in this area lacks strong theoretical…

More high quality child care is needed in the United States. This article evaluates the Better Kid Care (BKC) program produced by Pennsylvania State University Extension. Child care staff in Wisconsin were interviewed about changes they had made in their early childhood programs following participation in the BKC program. Findings show that 2…

The department editors, joined by classroom teachers from Wisconsin and reading specialists from Tennessee, examine across geographical and school boundaries the current practices of teachers who are initiating Response to Intervention (RTI) instruction. They address three goals of RTI that focus on providing systematic instruction of student…

This study investigated the types of instructors who teach local history, factors affecting their instruction in the community's past, and instructional practices employed to educate students about a locality's history. It examined teachers' implementation of items from "The Making of Milwaukee" (MOM) project which included a book, DVD…

In this study, the authors explore the implementation of a statewide class-size reduction program in nine high-poverty schools. Through qualitative methods, they examined how schools used class-size reduction to change staffing patterns and instructional programs. Requiring changes in space allocation, class-size reduction was accomplished through…