This publication presents evidence that low-income and minority children are more likely to be in schools with unqualified and ineffective teachers than their white and more affluent peers. A growing body of research claims that this lack of qualified teachers in high-poverty schools is more critical in explaining the underachievement of…

This publication examines research on the quality of teacher licensing examinations, explaining that state examinations do not necessarily guarantee that teachers have the breadth and depth of subject knowledge to teach all students to high standards. Researchers focused on English/language arts, mathematics, and science, analyzing actual exams…

The "ERIC Review" announces research results, publications, and new programs relevant to each issue's theme topic. This issue focuses on the changing face of K-12 professional development for both preservice and inservice teachers. The opening article by Dennis Sparks, "A Paradigm Shift in Staff Development," describes a…

This collection of essays discusses excellence and achievement in urban schools. "Needed: Excellent Teachers for Urban Schools" (Diane Ravitch) suggests that the best thing to do to help urban students is to ensure that they have excellent teachers. "Beyond the Courage to Change Urban School Systems" (Rudolph F. Crew) discusses…

This document consists of all 20 issues of the journal "Perceptions" published from fall 1990 through summer 1998 (8 years). Issues include articles about methods, materials, approaches, and techniques for working with students with emotional and behavioral disorders. (CR)

This year's Quality Counts, Education Week's comprehensive overview on the quality of American education, focuses on the relationship between teacher quality and the growing academic achievement gap. It includes profiles of hard-to-staff schools, state alternative certification programs, and surveys of the 50 states on recruiting, supporting, and…

At least 36 states have made some changes to their teacher policies by passing more than 100 bills to strengthen preparation and licensure standards and provide additional funding for teacher mentoring and professional development. The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF) has been a catalyst in bringing teacher policy…

This collection of papers focuses on the preparation of teachers by university-based education programs. The papers are: "The STEPS That Support P-12 Learning and Achievement" (Diana Rigden), which describes the Standards-based Teacher Education Project (STEP) for improving student learning; "The Responsibility for Assessing Beginning Teachers"…

This second in a four-part series on why academic achievement gaps exist notes that standard explanations for why minority students trail behind non-Hispanic whites are not good enough, suggesting that no single explanation for the gap exists, but instead a multitude of factors are influential. Poverty, though not the single most important cause,…

This issue focuses on what recent research from Tennessee, Texas, Massachusetts, and Alabama says about the most significant factor that impacts student achievement: the teacher. After presenting teacher effectiveness data from the four states, it discusses what makes an effective teacher, focusing on the need for strong verbal and math skills,…

This brief uses a regional approach to address issues related to teacher quality and supply. It discusses some of the factors and prospects that might inform the regional perspective, focusing on raising the ceiling by working as a region on teacher quality, viewing teacher quality as the key to reaching goals for student achievement, and…

These three journal issues contain the following articles: "Japanese at Mimosa Elementary School" (Azusa Uchihara); "A Successful Keypal Project Using Varied Technologies" (Jean L. Pacheco); "Promoting a Language-Proficient Society: What You Can Do" (Kathleen M. Marcos and Joy Kreeft Peyton); "Journal Reflections…

This collection of three issues focuses on competencies for teachers of learners who are deaf-blind, living with deaf-blindness, and resources in Australia for parents and families of students who are deaf-blind. Articles include: (1) "Research-to-Practice Focus: Competencies for Teachers of Learners Who Are Deafblind" (Marianne Riggio),…

This publication presents several articles on teacher development and improvement: "Teacher Development: A Strategy for School Improvement" (barriers to and features of effective teacher development); "Help Wanted: Recruiting and Keeping Quality Teachers" (teacher incentives, beginning teacher induction, teaching conditions,…

These three volumes contain articles related to (1) improving educational productivity (lessons from economics); (2) school-to-work (STW); and (3) reduced class size, offering recommendations from national invitational conferences. Topics include making schools work; tax revolts and school performance; market pressure and the impact on…