Education technology companies make millions of dollars from their education products and services. Ed tech companies could reinvest in school customers. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins suggests they could do this by incorporating teachers, especially teachers of color and teachers serving vulnerable subgroups of students, into their corporate board…

Teachers have historically been at the margins of educational improvement, and they are just beginning to drive improvements in the profession. Networked improvement communities (NICs) are one approach for collective reprofessionalization of teaching, where practice is defined and managed by practitioners. Edit Khachatryan and Emma Parkerson offer…

The author lays out guidelines and suggestions for how teachers can actually become policy leaders, taken from his book, "The Cage-Busting Teacher" (Harvard Education Press, 2015). Teachers serious about leadership can get the ear of policy makers by leveraging their positional and moral authority--though they may need to be persistent…

The original vision of a charter school called for heavy doses of professional teacher contribution throughout all aspects of curriculum and administration. Unfortunately, that is not how charter schools have evolved. Until now. The Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools is the first union-sponsored entity created for the sole purpose of…

Success for All, a comprehensive schoolwide reform approach for high-poverty elementary schools, has been successful in spreading itself across the country because of its local and national network of schools willing and able to provide technical and interpersonal support. Title I and other federal policies have contributed to scaling up proven…

Data from a recent study show that investing in science teachers' professional growth and teaching ability is a wise choice. However, the professional development must have the right content (the science discipline that teachers are actually teaching), at the right time (when they are assigned to teach that science discipline), and in a stable…

This principal worked with teachers to develop observation criteria to use in evaluating the teachers. (IRT)

The Scanlon Plan -- an industrial model -- has three essential aspects: group incentives for all employees in the organization; a negotiated, objective basis for distribution of incentives; and a formal system by which employees participate in decisions about management of the organization. (Author/JF)

Offers practical suggestions for teacher involvement in the planning of staff development programs. Teachers, as members of the staff development committee, should participate in identifying and ranking needs and designing a plan of action. (Author/WD)

Compares many teacher inservice programs to the artificial insemination of cows--decisions are made without teacher participation, teachers do not get to join in the act, and no one has much fun. Suggests that teachers be allowed to set their own goals and control their own learning. (Author/WD)

Reveals strong teacher dissatisfaction with the 45-15 plan adopted in Pasco County, Florida, public schools and suggests increased teacher involvement in planning processes. (DW)

Education by charter is a model for restructuring school districts that promotes long-term, continuing educational improvement. Groups of teachers can request funds directly from the school board to implement specific instructional programs. The usual administrative layers between teachers and school boards are nonexistent. Charter life cycles and…

Describes the San Jose (California) Teacher Involvement Project which included teachers in building-level decision making on instructional matters. (IRT)

Lead teachers, a "second-wave" reform concept aimed at professionalizing teaching and decentralizing educational decision-making, might overcome technical and political problems that merit pay, career ladders, and mentor teacher plans have failed to resolve. Lead teachers are motivated by intrinsic rewards and opportunities to exercise…

Management and teacher leaders in Livermore (California) have turned to integrative bargaining as a means of resolving conflict and negotiating contracts. Integrative bargaining reduces the adversarial relations characteristic of the industrial relations model of collective bargaining. (WD)