In order to better understand literacy coaches' impact on teachers, the authors analyzed interviews with 35 teachers who participated in a statewide professional development effort, the South Carolina Reading Initiative. For 3 years, literacy coaches facilitated bimonthly study groups for teachers and spent 4 days a week in teachers' classrooms…

Building on recent studies of literacy coaches' roles in schools and relationships with teachers, this article provides empirical descriptions of 3 ways that literacy coaches in an urban, midsized East Coast school district described balancing coaching behaviors they identified as responsive (coaching for teacher self-reflection) and directive…

This study draws on the theoretical underpinnings of the research literature in identity and investigates the transition from experienced teacher to novice mathematics coach. The 4 components of a math coach's identity (coach as supporter of teachers, coach as supporter of students, coach as learner, and coach as supporter of the school-at-large)…

Researchers have persisted in framing leadership as the driver for change and performance improvement in schools despite convincing theoretical commentary that proposes leadership as a process of reciprocal interaction. Although conceptualizing leadership as a reciprocal process offers leverage for understanding leadership effects on learning,…

A distributed perspective on school leadership and management has garnered considerable attention from policy makers, practitioners, and researchers in many countries over the past decade. However, we should be skeptical of its appeal as a measure of worth. While optimism is high with respect to taking a distributed perspective, we urge caution by…

At a time when educators and policy makers are focused on improving outcomes for all children, we believe it is essential to understand better the ways in which principals may influence instructional norms in their schools. Our literature review led us to believe that a combination of leadership approaches is important for supporting teachers' use…

Although teachers' knowledge is thought to contribute to the selection and implementation of mathematical tasks, empirical evidence supporting this claim is scarce. To investigate this relationship and understand its nature, this exploratory study examines the unfolding of tasks in a series of lessons led by 2 elementary school teachers who…

We report the development of a multiple-choice instrument that measures the mathematical knowledge needed for teaching arithmetic with fractions, decimals, and proportions. In particular, the instrument emphasizes the knowledge needed to reason about such arithmetic when numbers are embedded in problem situations. We administered our instrument to…

Recent education reform has emphasized the importance of teacher learning in improving classroom instruction and raising student achievement. This article focuses on teachers' learning opportunities, including formal professional development and on-the-job learning that occurs through interactions with colleagues. Using data from 30 elementary…

Core reading programs have a tremendous influence over reading instruction in the United States. Federal policies such as Reading First put increasing pressure on schools to implement a core reading program. While core reading programs contain a wide variety of suggested strategies and activities, they may not provide sufficient text or volume of…

The earliest national accountability tests occur at the fourth-grade level and the outcomes are aggregated. This national study exposes the depth of science education inequities a full year earlier by disaggregating third graders' demographic data with the science performance. A full 3-way ANOVA model was applied to test the 3 main effects…

This pilot study examined an implementation of a kindergarten summer school reading program in 4 high-poverty urban schools. The program targeted both basic reading skills and oral language development. Students were randomly assigned to a treatment group (n = 25) or a typical practice comparison group (n = 28) within each school; however,…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of schema-broadening instruction (SBI) on second graders' word-problem-solving skills and their ability to represent the structure of word problems using algebraic equations. Teachers (n = 18) were randomly assigned to conventional word-problem instruction or SBI word-problem instruction, which…

Policymakers and researchers continue to search for ways to improve K-12 education, which has led to an increased focus on teacher quality as an impetus for educational improvement. As such, current legislation under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) calls for highly qualified teachers in every classroom. But are the characteristics associated with…

A random sample of elementary teachers in grades 4-6 from across the United States were surveyed about their writing practices. Their responses raised concerns about the quality of writing instruction in upper-elementary grades. Almost two-thirds of the teachers reported that the teacher education courses they took in college provided them with…