Missouri is struggling with teacher shortages. In its public schools, which serve nearly 900,000 students, shortages have typically been concentrated in urban and rural areas, and in content areas of special education, math, and science. Recently, however, shortages have begun broadly impacting more schools in more parts of the state and more…

Current reports highlight the status of the teaching profession is at a 50-year low, noting sobering statistics about low teacher morale, the loss of professional prestige, lack of student interest to pursue teaching, and increased percentages of teachers thinking about leaving (Marken & Agrawal, 2022; Mission Square Research Institute, 2021;…

This article describes how, in the face of staff shortages and teacher turnover, Worcester (Massachusetts) Public Schools is supporting multiple avenues to recruit and retain quality educators in the district. High-quality professional learning is one of those avenues for ensuring a strong and stable workforce. The district's Office of Curriculum…

Building capacity by focusing on teacher leaders and supporting their development is an important part of the solution for managing the challenges facing education today. To meet the need for collaboration between principals and teachers, the authors have created a developmental approach they call learning-oriented leadership that principals and…

When the COVID-19 pandemic moved teaching and learning to remote and virtual spaces, teacher professional learning moved online as well. To create consistently high-quality teacher learning opportunities, many online asynchronous approaches need improvement, and they need to be tailor-made for the online setting. That was the authors' goal when…

After several years of operating in crisis mode, many teachers are feeling exhausted and burned out. More than ever, they need to feel appreciated, valued, and respected to be resilient in the face of ongoing stress. One of the best ways to show appreciation for teachers is to value their professional growth and provide support to address their…

While there has been national attention to the crisis of retaining teachers, principal turnover is also high. In this artile, five education leaders highlight how principal supervisors can improve principals' job satisfaction and retention.

Friday, March 13, 2020, was a professional learning day for many school districts in Connecticut. The timing was fortuitous because it gave educators a chance to make plans for the coming weeks. In the previous few days, they had learned that schools were going to be closed for a couple of weeks due to the rising threat from the pandemic that…

Most people associate summer with activities that have nothing to do with school, or, if they do, summer school comes to mind -- the remediation variety. Historically, summer school is for struggling students who need to relearn and firm up skills from prior years or for those required to retake a class. But what if it could be reimagined how to…

Efforts to tackle educator stress should balance self-care with demands for changes to the unjust systems that cause the stress. To illustrate how coaching can ensure that the steps educators take are equitable and include perspectives and voices of educators who have been historically marginalized, the author has created a composite story about…

Last month, the U.S. government lifted the emergency designation put in place three years ago to address the COVID-19 pandemic. But the impacts of the pandemic live on, especially in schools, where there is a dire need to address the interrupted learning students experienced and continue to wrestle with now that they are back in classrooms. The…

New Visions for Public Schools is in the third year of supporting a network of 18 New York City public schools to address uneven student success in Algebra 1. One of the ways New Visions is helping schools achieve greater equity in algebra is by supporting them to use a shared curriculum. But how is it known if the shared curriculum is making a…

When Noline Martin became assistant principal at Thurgood Marshall Elementary, a pre-K-6 school in Richardson, Texas, in 2017, the school was working its way up from being declared a failing campus two years earlier. It had recently improved to a "met standard" rating, but Martin knew the school could do more to help its students. Her…

Part of the reason many districts fail to achieve the promise of high-quality professional learning is that they operate with what the authors call a "PD mindset." This mindset manifests in sporadic, one-time events, inservice sessions, guest speakers, webinars, and workshops that are not part of a larger plan or vision. The authors…

How does one overcome the challenges to finding time for meaningful professional learning? The authors asked seven experts in the field, and these practitioners offer powerful strategies for making better use of educator time. An example from Illinois centers student data in school systems as an essential component of a school's overall commitment…