Urban public schools and their teachers are under siege. From increased standardization, privatization and testing to a growing number of students whose needs are not being met by schools, urban public school teachers face a daunting task. Without a space in which to critically examine their daily experiences within schools, many well-intentioned…

The purpose of this document is to assist members of the North Carolina Professional Practices Commission in the development of guidelines for teacher evaluation. The paper reviews the historical development of teacher performance appraisal and the implementation of the Teacher Performance Appraisal Instrument (TPAI) starting in the mid-1980s.…

A shortage of teachers to staff primary and secondary schools is a common occurrence internationally. The fact of, or potential for, teacher shortages is a major consideration in any nation's aspirations of attaining, or maintaining, an educational system of high quality. To study and understand the nature of teacher shortages, it is first…

This study was conducted to examine the transition of newcomer teachers from Pacific Rim countries as they entered selected California school settings. Twelve teachers from China, Hong Kong, Korea, Mexico, and Vietnam were the research participants, and all had had prior teaching experience in their native countries. As the researcher and the…

Teachers of elementary and secondary mathematics and science have been the focus of increased attention in recent years. The Schools and Staffing Survey, conducted by the National Center for Educational Statistics in school year 1987-88, provides an opportunity to look at the characteristics of the professional men and women currently responsible…

This study sought to determine whether mentoring relationships developed between teaching interns and public school teachers who were designated as their mentors, what mentoring roles and functions were most characteristic of those relationships, and how much congruence existed between mentors' and interns' perceptions of the mentors' behavior.…

Although industrial and organizational psychologists have labored for two decades to understand processes governing behavior at work, the literature reveals little empirical work on organization value orientation and its effects on individuals within an organization. From research on personal values and interpersonal relationships, one might…

The instructional information system (IIS), a method by which instructionally relevant information can be collected, stored, processed, and reported to various users in a timely manner, has considerable potential to improve instruction. To better identify the circumstances in which the IIS will succeed, it is necessary to know more about how…

This study examined the nature of teacher layoffs and their effects on the role enactment and coping strategies of teachers. Fourteen high school teachers, who were employed in a large urban school district plagued by declining enrollment, were interviewed. Each teacher had been "riffed" (reduction in force) and recalled at least once in the…

Utah's teacher career ladder program, adopted in January 1984, differs from other states' programs in its decentralized approach. Accordingly, school districts have developed widely varying incentives, allocations of responsibilities, pay scales, and teacher evaluation procedures. Various calls for career ladders culminated in 1983 with a…

Sources of supply of teachers relevant to District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) are discussed in this monograph. Subgroups traditionally available for recruitment into teaching include: (1) newly trained teachers; (2) migrating teachers; (3) re-entry teachers; (4) non-education majors; and (5) second-career professionals. The subgroups which…

This tenth annual School Staff Report presents information on the certified professional staff in the 165 public school districts in Connecticut. Certified professional staff includes teachers, support staff (counselors, psychological examiners, school psychologists, social workers and reading consultants) and administrators. Descriptive…

This paper analyzes the content of a subculture in an organization, that of the faculty of a public middle school. The paper tries to articulate the substance of the subculture and to discover its sources in the shared experience of the teachers and in the way in which they wove that experience into a coherent and satisfying pattern of meaning.…

Ways are examined in which teacher centers can aid in the integration of educational theory and practice. It is observed that through cooperative effort, the roles of the university and school personnel involved in teacher center work are slowly modified over time. Activities examined for integrating effects are: governance, staff renewal, the…

An analysis of statistics on teacher supply and demand in public schools, l977, indicates the following trends: (1) The supply of graduates completing prepartion to enter teaching is smaller than the number reported for l976. This is the fifth consecutive year that the numer completing preparation to enter teaching has decreased from the all-time…