Drawing upon data from twenty-five interviews, this paper examines how the Maryland State Department of Education's Cross-functional Team navigates its changing role from compliance monitor to breakthrough partner in terms of discourse, time, and flexibility, as it carries out the work of the Breakthrough Center. It also examines how the role of…

Like any profession or talent, mastering teaching takes thousands of hours of deliberate practice (Ericsson, Prietula, & Cokely, 2007). Here, "deliberate" means having a coach or mentor to provide feedback on key skills and strategies for practicing to develop them. If this is true--that mastering the practices of great teaching…

This article, written by a team of research-active teachers who are also senior leaders in a large, urban, comprehensive high school in the North of England, reports on their joint teacher inquiry project. This work has school-wide significance, given recent history, progressing from being graded as a "failing" school by the Office for…

"It's demoralizing to see your life's work pilloried almost daily in the news." This comment is typical of the anger and disappointment expressed by many of the more than 2,300 Chicago teachers surveyed by Deborah Lynch in 2011-2012. Lynch set out to explore how the accountability policies pursued by Chicago's board of…

Accountability agendas are influencing the secondary education sector in Australian schools. Analysis of student achievement, student feedback mechanisms and personal reflection are forming part of these agendas as methods of teacher evaluation. Additionally, and more recently, teacher evaluation through "peer review" is emerging as a…

Background/Context:Policy discussions in the U.S. and abroad have become increasingly studded with reference to the results of international tests like PISA. Unlike most assessments, PISA is not designed to measure whether students have mastered a particular school curriculum but rather provide a measure of students' ability to meet future…

Background/Context: Based on archival material, the following paper analyzes the political strategies of the early OECD stakeholders in transforming schooling from a cultural to a technological system and how they were in need of standardizing different existing patterns of thoughts or institutional behaviors in the member countries. The European…

Colleges and universities exist within a political arena where external demands for accountability materialize within a market-driven environment. As a result, government agencies pressure colleges and universities to rely on assessment and transparent reporting to become more market-driven assuming that the competition within the market, led by…

This commentary seeks to expand the dialogue on place-based science education presented in Katie Lynn Brkich's article, where the connections fifth grade students make between their formal earth science curriculum and their lived experiences are highlighted. The disconnect between the curriculum the students are offered and their immediate…

Mueller and Hanson report on a continuous improvement process taking place in the Papillion-La Vista School District in Papillion, Nebraska, where a proactive stance to improved learning for all students focuses directly on the human element as the change agent. The district has implemented a systemic and systematic continuous improvement process…

Relational professionalism in early childhood teaching has been described as reflecting professional ethic of care values, as well as historical maternalist views. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, early childhood teachers negotiate conflicting contexts of professionalisation and maternalism. A strategic plan for early childhood education has emphasised…

This article grapples with the relationship between curriculum theory and teacher education. Using Yeat's poem, "The Second Coming," I characterize three periods of teacher education in North America, suggesting we are now on the brink of a fourth period. My premise is that teacher education is central to a Faculty of Education.…

In this paper, we explore the work life of a scholar new to academia in her methods of leading informally. We discuss five vignettes that offer moments of learning and reflection, including reducing performance anxiety, privileging financial accountability, the rise of the virtual world, the impact of silence, and the potential for confrontation…

In this paper, we explore some of the keywords around which the practice of school inspection is ordered in England. As part of a project that explores the role of inspection in governing schooling in England, Scotland and Sweden, we have examined some of the key sources through which Ofsted (The Office for Standards in Education, Children's…

Modern scholarship has struggled to come to terms with the meaning of wisdom and its significance in the field of education. This book examines the importance of pursuing wisdom in schools by turning to ancient and medieval sources for clarification concerning the nature of wisdom. Sean Steel argues that our current emphasis on the development of…