This guide aims to present district instructional leaders and staff with a core set of criteria for what high-quality professional development entails. What makes this particular document different and useful is the focus on practical issues of district-level implementation in multiple teaching and learning environments. This is a guide designed…

Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers are underrepresented in public schools across the United States of America, with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color making up roughly 37% of the adult population and 50% of children, but just 19% of the teaching force. Yet research over decades has indicated their positive impact on student learning…

For the past 12 years, the Cowen Institute has published the "State of Public Education in New Orleans" ("SPENO") on a near annual basis. During that time, the purpose, content, and audience of the report have evolved. This edition of the report is a snapshot of public education in the current academic year using aggregated…

This brief investigates teaching vacancies and difficult-to-staff teaching positions (i.e., positions for which the principals reported that it was very difficult to fill a vacancy or that they could not fill a vacancy in a specific subject area) in public schools in four school years (1999-2000, 2003-04, 2007-08, and 2011-12). This Statistics in…

Over the years, careers have transformed to be flexible and changing rather than stable, life-long commitments to an organization. As such, making work meaningful, controlling the work environment, and taking the opportunity to get required training for the next job are as important as the financial advantages. Educators' careers cannot be…

Communities across the country are grappling with different approaches to improving their schools. Introducing or expanding charter schools is one of the approaches that states and school districts have considered or implemented. Charter schools serve more than 5 percent of public school students nationwide and make up close to 7 percent of all…

This article provides a community relations professional the rationale and background regarding the use of Universal Instructional Design in classrooms. It also provides community relations specialists with a communication plan for educating the public on Universal Instructional Design via a teaching and modeling approach. Results of a recent…

In most cases of self-defense and defense of others, the defendant is required to affirmatively plead and prove that: (1) an apparent necessity to act in self-defense existed; (2) the force used was reasonable under the existing circumstances; and (3) the defendant had no time to resort to the law. (MLF)

This compilation of selected codes of ethics was drawn up to apprise prospective and practicing classroom teachers, special education teachers, administrators, and counselors of the accepted ethics codes pertinent to their respective fields. Section one, for classroom teachers, presents the code of ethics of the National Education Association and…

Using an innovative bargaining model, a Chicago-area (Illinois) school district negotiated a teacher contract in under 30 days in an atmosphere of mutual trust. Central to sociologist Irving Goldaber's "win-win bargaining" model are (1) a schedule and a set of values agreed to by both parties and (2) a neutral facilitator. After adopting…

The authors state their book's main purpose is to assist teachers to become "legally literate." The reviewers describe the book as a wide-ranging, narrative approach to teachers' legal rights. However, those who want an indepth and technical discussion on substantive and procedural issues are advised to look elsewhere. (MLF)

Explores the legal status of public school teachers' wearing religiously distinctive clothing in the absence of specific state prohibition. Analyzes the effects of laws prohibiting teachers from wearing religious clothes and argues for the abolition of religious dress statutes. (40 references) (MLF)

The Home Education Learning Project (Project HELP) of the Philadelphia Public Schools is described. Based on an earlier school district telephone answering service program (Dial-A-Teacher Assistance (DATA LINE), with input from students through surveys, the project was implemented in 1984 to assist students with homework questions. In the first…

Analyzes the law of defamation as it applies to teachers with special attention to the public official status of teachers. Concludes that public school teachers who are accused of deficiencies in the performance of their duties appear to have very little protection from false accusations under the law of defamation. (MLF)

Designed to determine to what extent the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) products and services are utilized by certified school personnel, this study found that, on the average, 25.1% of the teachers, librarians, counselors, and administrators in three educational service regions in west central Illinois have used Resources in…