The study reviewed in this article provides empirical evidence that effective professional development has a positive and significant impact on instructional practices, not only for those who directly experience professional development, but also for colleagues who receive help and support from those who have participated directly and thus gained…

This article describes the use of standards to guide the reform of a struggling high school in Grant Michigan. The author describes the challenges and obstacles that the school was facing, and admits that school reform was difficult. Turnaround seemed impossible, but it held the promise of something larger than life: successful students who become…

This article describes an initiative designed to improve the content-area literacy skills of all students at a Massachusetts high school and to demonstrate the important role teacher leaders play in bridging the various elements of school improvement efforts. Meeting students' language and literacy needs within content-area classrooms is…

The future of professional learning is shaped by its present and past. As new technologies emerge to increase affordability, access, and appropriateness of professional learning, three beliefs are visible in current practices related to online learning. Each contains a premise that merits identification and examination. The authors call these…

Using the Reflective Dialogue Journal process, principal leadership candidates at Dominican University gain critical support and a partner to share ideas and test theories on a regular and as-needed basis. After two years of implementation with 60 principal interns from public, charter, and private/parochial schools, there are more than 1,500…

The recent proliferation of online learning designs presents a challenge: How can professional learning leaders decide which designs will be the most effective? A first step in considering how to shape professional learning is to understand the fundamentals of what makes learning meaningful to adults. Within a particular context, educators will…

As anyone in a partnership--a marriage, a business, a professional relationship--will attest, it takes hard work and energy, time and persistence, and reciprocal commitment to make a partnership successful. Writing from the perspective of an external partner, the authors explore lessons learned from eight years of working with public school…

IMPACT, Washington, D.C.'s controversial evaluation system, sets clear expectations for instruction and holds teachers to well-defined standards of performance. Now into its third year, the program appears to be meeting its goals of rewarding effective teachers and eliminating educators it considers incompetent. And it has given the public reason…

A diverse and historically underserved urban student population struggles with academic learning and social adjustment in a context of limited resources. Support for staff efforts or special student needs is also limited, making it harder to attract and retain qualified staff. Given the conditions that educators must contend with in such settings,…

Through its engagement with grantees on initiatives to improve school leadership, The Wallace Foundation came to recognize the important role that state organizations play in advancing effective leadership in districts and schools as well as the importance of coordination among state- and district-level policies. The authors have recently…

Network learning supported by 21-century technology is reweaving the fabric of how educators acquire and create new knowledge. At the Alaska Educational Innovations Network (AEIN), educators believe this has the potential to change how a profession looks at professional development. They have learned that using technology to support networks…

The Highline School District, located roughly 10 miles south of Seattle, Washington, has begun to implement a residency model for professional learning. Like the medical model, current teachers often traveled from other schools to be "in residency" at a previously selected classroom for six half-day sessions during the 2005-06 school year. Some…

Improving the literacy skills of struggling high school readers remains one of the greatest challenges educators face today. Students who are two or more years behind grade level in their language arts skills have little chance of successfully completing a rigorous program of studies in high school and are the most likely to drop out. Accelerating…

Well-designed, thoughtfully planned, and adequately supported professional development is a necessary ingredient in all educational improvement efforts. This article reports on the result of a survey conducted in 11 public schools in two suburban New York districts which was based on Guskey's five levels of evaluating professional development and…

In this article, the author, a superintendent of Adlai E. Stevenson High School District 125, discusses how they have addressed their school community's collective fear of failing to continue to grow. Staying focused on their individual and collective adult behaviors and respond to any manifestation or source of student failure, is the simplest…