Derek Roguski and Hannah Sadtler came to New Orleans in 2008 through Teach For America. The competitive program provided five weeks' training and helped place them in schools, and both young teachers were eager to learn to teach and help the city's students. But they quickly found that they had more questions than answers about the schools they…

Perhaps at no other time in the history of American education has there been more publicly available information about what teachers think about their profession, their students, and the conditions under which they work. As advocates pore over the results of teacher surveys being conducted nationally, at the state level, and even at individual…

Superficially, the Brooklyn Generation School, in the Flatbush area, looks a lot like the other six small public high schools that share space in this tall building, the former South Shore High School. What's noticeably different about it, though, is the strength of the relationships among staff members. Teachers can be seen running across the…

Experts caution that reliable and up-to-date statistics on student violence against teachers can be hard to acquire. National and district data, however, show a drop in such violence over the past decade. The National Center for Education Statistics' 2007 school crime and safety report, the only known source for such data nationwide, says the…

This article describes when teachers in Detroit, Michigan and Gary, Indiana went on strike in September 2006, which have resulted in the closure or relocation of 35 schools to other campuses since the end of the 2004-05 school year. The 2006-07 school year has brought with it a fresh wave of labor unrest, as teachers in districts large and small…

A major strand in the current national push to improve secondary education is the movement to scale down schools into smaller, more personalized units, especially for students facing the greatest obstacles to success. Hundreds of small schools and learning communities have cropped up in recent years, famously helped along by the Bill & Melinda…

A few weeks before the fifth anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings on April 20, 1999, Principal Frank DeAngelis reflects on how his school has changed over the past five years. Much like the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, "Columbine" carries a chilling meaning that resonates across the…

District leaders in Philadelphia are pushing for significant cutbacks in teachers' seniority rights. The proposal that principals be allowed to disregard seniority in most hiring decisions has outraged the teachers' union. For nearly 40 years, job openings for Philadelphia teachers have been filled primarily on that basis. In this article, the…

Access to reliable technology. Help from classroom aides. Out-of-classroom duties. Planning time with colleagues. Administrator accessibility. All those working conditions and more play a vital part in whether good teachers feel sufficiently satisfied to stay in their schools. Now, policymakers are beginning to gather evidence on just how much…