Discusses a project using cooperative learning as a tool for building learning communities of minority teachers in Texas, describing academic achievement, self-esteem, social skills, and collaboration in relation to 50 teachers participating in the project. Cooperative learning and teacher empowerment brought teachers closer together in a short…

Using its Academic Excellence Indicator System, Texas has labeled some schools as low performers, giving them a "Priority One" rating for improvement. Principals of low-performing campuses were interviewed to assess the condition of these campuses as communities of learners working to remove the Priority One label. All of the 6 subject…

A growing number of American students are nonnative English speakers. These students are vulnerable to early school exit and schools are facing more and more such students each year. Presently, about 56% of all public school teachers in the United States have at least one English language learner (ELL) student in their class, but less than 20% of…