For past two decades, there has been a growing national concern about teacher quality. This presentation discusses Connecticut's Beginning Educator Support and Training Program (BEST) and emulation of its assessment component by a medium sized department of education. The support component of BEST requires that all school districts provide…

Clinical supervision is an ongoing series of professional development cycles through which preservice and beginning teachers move from being apprentices at induction and probationary levels to being members of peer evaluation teams and self-reflective practitioners. Development of collaboration between field experience offices and local school…

This guide for novice teachers includes ten sections: (1) "A Knowing Colleague as Counsel...About the Policies, Practices, and Politics!" (proactively seek a mentor); (2) "A Place Called 'My Room' for Students To Grow, To Groom, and To Zoom!" (create a climate that fosters growth and pride); (3) "A Method for Managing 1,500 Decisions: On Your…

This report summarizes a study of Americans' attitudes toward teaching, educational opportunity, and school reform. Surveys of 2,501 adults nationwide indicate that Americans unequivocally support the guarantee of free public education and consider improvement in fundamental areas of student behavior and academic performance essential. Greater…

This collection of papers includes: "New Teachers for a New Century: Recommendations from a National Invitational Conference" (Margaret C. Wang and Herbert J. Walberg); "Teacher Quality, Teacher Effectiveness: Basing Education Policy on the Facts" (Arthur E. Wise); "Accreditation Reform and the Preparation of Teachers for…

This fastback explains that better teaching is the key to higher student achievement, and improving the quality of both teachers and their teaching is an important challenge for departments of education and schools nationwide. The fastback focuses on: "Enhancing Teacher Quality" (content knowledge, licensure and certification, and…

This document describes the context in which colleges and universities prepare teachers to work with children with disabilities, presenting a vision for a system of teacher preparation conducted through partnerships between higher education and P-12 schools. It offers perspectives, ideas, and examples that may help those who are engaged in and…

The Office of Educational Research and Improvement funded nine projects exploring whether partnerships could help improve teacher education and induction. It created consortia of state education agencies, state agencies of higher education, teacher education colleges, and local school districts to collaborate on improving teacher education and…

This brief addresses four areas of opportunity to influence teacher quality. These areas of opportunity are used to create a framework to help state and district policymakers comprehensively address teacher quality. There are a number of policy levers or strategies that can be used as part of a comprehensive approach to improving teacher quality.…

This manual is intended for use as part of a 3-day orientation training for new faculty at the U.S. Army War College (USAWC) in Pennsylvania, a facility which trains tactical and operational leaders for policy and strategy roles in the military and related agencies. The orientation focuses on five factors which determine the value of an…

Providing support focused on real challenges is critical in retaining highly qualified new science teachers, but the field lacks a systematic description of these teachers' needs. The authors of this article examine the areas that science teachers are expected to understand: (1) the content and disciplines of science; (2) learners; (3)…

The author conducted a study of reasons why novice teachers become disenchanted with the administrative support in their schools. Using the ideas of Rosenholtz and Simpson (1990) as a basis for his research, the author designed and administered a survey to 53 novice teachers and 15 building principals regarding the factors that influence novice…

The first section of this paper describes the strategies that a veteran teacher developed during a study of supervision undertaken while supervising interns in a preservice practicum. These strategies were supported by the practical knowledge gained from 15 years of classroom teaching, study of clinical supervision, knowledge of models of…

A 3-year research project commissioned in 1988 investigated Scottish probationer teachers' views of five aspects of their experience: initial training, recruitment and selection, induction, support, and assessment. Interviews and questionnaires were used to collect the views of 250 probationer teachers, their headteachers, other school staff,…

This collection of papers identifies critical issues in mentoring and mentoring programs. Paper 1, "Support Behaviors Among Teachers in Authentic Settings" (Deborah L. Bainer), discusses the following issues: (1) mentoring is just one of the types of support behaviors needed and practiced by teachers in elementary schools; (2) support…