A growing number of states and school districts are experimenting with new approaches to paying teachers. These efforts to reform teacher pay can involve a range of state and local actors, including governors, state education officials, superintendents, local school boards, teacher unions, private foundations, community organizations, and local…

For a good shot at $4 billion in grants from the federal Race to the Top Fund, states will need to make a persuasive case for their education reform agendas, demonstrate significant buy-in from local school districts, and devise plans to evaluate teachers and principals based on student performance, according to final regulations released last…

Purpose: Disparities in learning opportunities endure. This paper aims to investigate whether the learning representative schemes in the UK and New Zealand (NZ) may redress disparate opportunities for learning. Design/methodology/approach: An interview study of UK trade unions' educational officers and an interview study of representatives of…

"Education Matters" is the monthly newsletter of the Association of American Educators (AAE), an organization dedicated to advancing the American teaching profession through personal growth, professional development, teacher advocacy and protection. This issue of the newsletter includes: (1) Lessons from the Frontlines of the Charter…

The academic year began with a bang last fall at the University of California (UC). A series of bangs, actually, featuring a united front of students, staff, and faculty in a coordinated series of walkouts and strikes across the system's ten campuses. The target of their outrage was a series of draconian layoffs, wage cuts, and drastic tuition…

State and local governments today are, with few exceptions, in deep financial distress. While some governors can offer the recession, the housing crisis, or the loss of an important industry as an excuse for poor finances, many states are simply structurally insolvent. In this article, the authors discuss the primary cause of the states' long-term…

This article focuses on teachers' repeated complaints of lack of time. The theme is explored within data material collected in a research and development project in a Norwegian primary school (2006-09), including observations from development work together with a teacher team, and interviews with their principal, a representative of the teacher…

During the 33 years New York City schools were controlled primarily by community school boards, the city's mayors posited that greater mayoral influence was the cure for the ills afflicting the city's schools. This paper applies theories of policy change to the 30-year battle for control of New York's schools while highlighting the role of the…

Using a reduced form version of a theoretical expansion of Hoxby's (1996) education production model, we investigate whether bargaining teachers unions are a boon or a bust to the economy of the state. We anticipate teachers, being in the public sector veiled from competition, are less likely to be efficient. Yet, their product, education,…

This article aims to provide a broad understanding of the role of union learning representatives (ULRs) and the contribution of union education and learning initiatives. It examines the scope for union learning to be distinctive and sustainable, and it does this by summarising and building upon a holistic review of research of ULR activity across…

Denver's performance-pay system for teachers has long been hailed as a model, in good part because it was jointly conceived and implemented by the school district and the local teachers' union. However, that collaborative spirit is now in jeopardy, with union and district leaders engaged in a protracted battle over proposed changes to the system.…

At age 27, the author became a chairwoman of the Board of Directors of a $75-million conglomerate, the largest student-governed business in the nation. At Associated Students UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles), four undergraduate and four graduate students serve on the board, which oversees the several bookstores, dozens of…

In 2001 the Finnish government decided that the state sector should develop a new salary system that would take more fully into account the actual outcomes and demands of particular posts. Subsequently, in June 2006, an agreement on a new salary system for the Finnish university sector was reached between the negotiating parties, the employers and…

No one stakeholder group can realize lasting change on their own; nor can any reform initiative focusing on just one type of strategy create the workplace conditions needed to truly build capacity within the education profession. Rather, stakeholders must focus on collaborating, reaching common understanding, and prioritizing for ultimate impact…

Central Falls is, by far, the poorest community in Rhode Island. More than 40 percent of the children under 18 live in poverty, and 40 percent of that group live in severe poverty. At Central Falls High School, low-income Latino students have fallen behind their white counterparts, with shockingly low graduation, poor literacy, and low…