Presents the story of the number one for-profit school in the United States, the Thomas A. Edison Charter Academy. Teachers had a heavier workload, but better pay and perks. Shortly after opening, many teachers were discontent with the long days and calendar, lack of follow through on promised benefits, and other issues. Reactions to this…

Discusses teacher-quality issues related to current and projected teacher shortages, including out-of-field teaching, teacher certification, working conditions, and salaries. Asserts that nation is currently experiencing a crisis in teacher quality, with a disproportional impact on disadvantaged urban students. (PKP)

Describes the author's 35-year career teaching in the California Community College System. Discusses social, political, intellectual, and emotional changes over that time span and into retirement. (SR)

Describes ongoing research on part-time teaching in selected Alberta (Canada) school districts. Themes include benefits and drawbacks of part-time teaching for individuals, students, and schools; incentives to attract part-time teachers; effects on principals in small schools; rural-urban differences; driving forces; and implications for the…

The intent of No Child Left Behind is to close the achievement gap. However, in this article, the authors point out, the teachers working with the students who have the farthest to go also have the fewest resources and the poorest working conditions. Districs across the San Francisco Bay area and the nation are slashing budgets, teachers, and…

This chapter provides an overview of academic freedom and tenure as applied to the community college.

Like most other parts of the Australian public sector, Australian universities have been required to do more with less over the past decade. A key strategy in reducing costs has been the increased casualisation of teaching. This paper uses a hard/soft model of Human Resource Management as a framework within which to argue that increased…

In this study, a two-group structural equation model was proposed and tested to investigate the change in faculty members' perceptions of their worklife and satisfaction over time. Using the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty [i.e., NSOPF:93-99, National Center for Educational Statistics, US Department of Education, National Study of…

Based on narrative-biographical work with teachers, the author argues that teachers' emotions have to be understood in relation to the vulnerability that constitutes a structural condition of the teaching job. Closely linked to this condition is the central role played by teachers' "self-understanding"--their dynamic sense of identity--in…

This article shares the results of a study that explored the need, and consequential birth, of a new teacher support group for newly graduated elementary education majors. Constructed of a university supervisor and five newly graduated novice teacher's, this study examines their first semester as classroom teachers. Research related to the…

Recent national and international studies carried out in a number of countries have drawn attention to the degree of job satisfaction among teachers. In general, it has been found that context seems to be the most powerful predictor of overall satisfaction. However, given that most of the international studies on teacher satisfaction have been…

This report presents results from the Newark, New Jersey, site of the Foundations of Learning (FOL) Demonstration, an intervention and random assignment evaluation of a curriculum designed to target children's behavior and emotional adjustment through the training of preschool teachers. The demonstration adopted the model used by CSRP (formerly…

This report presents results from the Newark, New Jersey, site of the Foundations of Learning (FOL) Demonstration, an intervention and random assignment evaluation of a curriculum designed to target children's behavior and emotional adjustment through the training of preschool teachers. The demonstration adopted the model used by CSRP (formerly…

Early career special educators must be engaged in conversations with developers of preservice teacher preparation programs to co-construct initial teacher education programs which meet their needs. The process of listening to the teachers themselves could serve to ensure that teachers are an explicit element of program design. This article…

In surveys, research university faculty often report that they value teaching more than their departments do. This incongruence holds implications for job satisfaction, stress, time spent on teaching, organizational continuity, and even student evaluations. Using an interactionist view of organizations, Mary C. Wright examines the reasons for this…