Denver Public Schools, one of 14 districts that receive funding from The Wallace Foundation to improve principal effectiveness, is also one of a number of districts around the country emphasizing the development of principals' managers in the central office. The principal's job has changed over the last decade, going from a role that revolved…

Being a principal was the most demanding job the author ever had. He worked hard, mostly in isolation. Like most principals, he struggled to manage the position's political and bureaucratic necessities in order to concentrate on what he thought was the fundamental work of schools: teaching and learning. He struggled to continue to learn and grow…

It may be hard to imagine teams of high school educators--teachers, counselors, principals, central office leaders, curriculum specialists--working together to overcome the student achievement barriers of poverty, ethnicity, apathy, and inconsistencies in rigor and access to the curriculum in order to pursue the "ought-ness" of a better…

What teachers believe and how they behave is a result of socialization in the culture of teaching. If long-term school reform is a goal of staff development, then strategies and mechanisms must be developed which focus on changing the culture of teaching. (JD)

Describes ways in which principals can use a two-phase staff development process to foster a strong sense of community and build an educational community. Benefits include higher staff morale, increased faculty cohesion, and a renewed dedication to teaching. (SM)

How do principals get teachers past isolation to create a top school? Principals must create a web of leadership, a nonhierarchical structure of authority and control. While they remain at the center, they are supported only when they learn to delegate. Teachers learn to take on leadership roles, creating a more vested interest and lessening the…

Studying one's profession, especially when done in community with others, where the learning is richer and deeper, has not been the norm in the education community. Educators typically have been physically isolated from each other because of the structure of school facilities and the schedules that dominate the school day. This physical isolation…

Describes the Pittsburgh Public Schools' efforts to institutionalize a shared decision-making model in secondary schools to provide more supportive educational and professional environments. The article examines the Schenly High School Teacher Center staff development program, noting that organizational development takes time and effort by the…

Most schools and districts have created an artificial distinction between working and learning. They operate in a way that suggests teachers work (teach) 180 or so days a year and learn (attend programs) on four or five days each year set aside for professional development. The author states that school leaders must end this distinction between…

Promises to staff usually evolve around issues of working conditions and individual autonomy, but a staff's collective commitments to students can serve as a powerful catalyst for improved professional practice. In this article, the authors present two schools--Penasquitos Elementary School in San Diego, California, and Levey Middle School in…