Leading Educators works with schools and districts to maximize the leadership development of highly effective teachers. It aims to bolster the talent pipeline by identifying and training strong potential teacher-leaders, and in turn, increasing student achievement and developing teachers on its fellows' teams. The organization's leaders believe…

In 2006, the Weld County School District Re-8 in Fort Lupton, Colorado, was eager to find a way to increase teacher effectiveness and, as a result, improve student achievement. This small, semirural district about 35 miles northeast of Denver grappled with high teacher turnover (34% in 2005) and low scores on state assessments (three out of four…

Launched in 2008, the Strategic Data Project, housed at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, seeks to bridge the divide between educational research and practice in order to transform the use of data in education to improve student achievement. Through the project, the authors build robust research partnerships with…

This book provides 35 profiles that are a small sampling of the successful strategies, environments, and activities taking place within the school-to-work/vocational-technical education arena in Arizona. The profiles describe a variety of successful strategies. They include many types of activities serving a number of populations. They also…

Typically, efforts by English, speech, and developmental reading departments to make students "complete communicators" have been confined to one or two basic skills courses giving unsuccessful "one-shot" inoculations in the theory and practice of one of the communication competencies. As such communication is not taught in the context of the…

An alternative mathematics preparation program for K-8 teachers is described as an existence proof that steadily increasing effectiveness of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) preparation is possible. The program is based on treating every lesson in each of five mathematics content and methods courses as objects of study.…

Te Kotahitanga is a research and professional development project that aims to support teachers to raise the achievement of New Zealand's indigenous Maori students in public/mainstream classrooms. An Effective Teaching Profile, developed from the voices of Maori students, their families, principals and some of their teachers, provides direction…

This pamphlet describes the Distinguished Achievement Awards of The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education which were conceived in 1965 as an annual event to encourage member colleges and universities to describe their successful programs and, in turn, to stimulate other institutions to greater action. Presented in the first half…

Every year, the Improving Teacher Quality State Grants Program issues a Request for Proposals (RFP) to award funds provided annually from the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In recent years, each RFP has focused on a specific objective tied to state priorities in teacher quality. Six grants were awarded in 2008: (1) Bell Gardens Science…

Like never before, today's classroom teachers routinely are being asked to collaboratively analyze student data, develop or implement new mandated curricula, and assess the effectiveness of these innovations. Ironically, few preservice preparatory or in-service professional development programs actively train classroom instructors in the use of…

During the 1975-76 and 1976-77 academic years, a project was undertaken to design, implement, and evaluate an inservice course for home economics teachers in the state of New York. Eighty-two junior high and senior high teachers participated, representing both rural and urban areas. The objectives of the course dealt with improvement of specified…

One approach to institutional renewal and faculty development uses a teaching resource center run by and for faculty members, as illustrated in this article by the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. It has improved instruction and raised faculty morale. (Author/LBH)

The Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund was established by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, UK, with the declared aims of enhancing the quality of teaching and learning and raising the status of teaching among higher education institutions. This paper considers the three strands of the initiative--subject, institutional, and…

Due to the dearth of qualified professional teachers, policymakers and professional development programs need to focus on improving the quality of high school mathematics teaching in order to diffuse this crisis. In the middle of this crisis, the demand for new teachers is predicted to rise significantly in the next ten years. Based on the…