Why don't most well-meaning efforts to improve teaching and grow key teachers' capacity to act as instructional leaders show success? Kenneth Baum and David Krulwich think they know why: While we set up "collaborative" procedures and meetings in which teachers work together to explore effective instruction--critical friends groups, data…

Once instructional coach Anne Beaton began creating chances for teachers to get into one another's classrooms to observe and learn about different teaching styles, she realized that not only is studying one another's teaching practices as a community essential in serving students, it also lifts teachers up as leaders. Beaton knew she was learning…

Leading a school can be a lonely, challenging job, Elena Aguilar has found in her years coaching principals. Aguilar describes how coaching approach she's developed--transformational coaching--helps principals get three things most of them need: a neutral person they can talk with confidentially, job-embedded professional development, and a safe…