Teaching as a Profession
As more and more evidence points to the impact of consistently effective teaching on student achievement, questions emerge about teaching as a profession—and as a career. This topic includes articles addressing trends and issues in teacher preparation, career development, and the day-to-day work of teaching.
Organizations offer teachers new avenues for influencing education policy
During her first seven years of teaching, Jessica Keigan rarely contemplated education issues outside of her own school and district. A high school English teacher in the Denver suburbs, Keigan served as a department head at her school and sat on various district committees. But she did not engage in broader political debates or think much about how federal and state policies affected her work.Continue
Online PD helps teachers learn to collaborate so their students will, too
In Robbinsville, N.J., fourth-grade teacher Linda Biondi helps teachers share and critique each other’s essays on the National Writing Project’s digital writing websites. Back in the classroom, she works with her students to do the same thing—encouraging each other to dig deeper within themselves for details as they master their writing skills.
Paul Toner on the MTA’s controversial plan to include student scores in teacher evaluations
In this interview Paul Toner, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, explains the MTA's controversial proposal to use state test results, among other things, to rate teacher performance.
New programs aim to speed up learning curve for new teachers
Thousands of new teachers started this school year by participating in teacher induction programs, now required in 27 states. And as they grow in number, induction programs are changing. No longer simple orientation sessions to help teachers feel a part of a new school, they are evolving into comprehensive, formal programs to team up new teachers with savvy mentors, sometimes for multiple years.