Reward your best teachers for the great work they do! Is your school system considering teacher merit pay? Now is the time to know the potential pitfalls and learn from the experiences of other districts. Respected experts Ritter and Barnett provide a step-by-step approach to merit pay that draws on best practices from effective, successful programs. You’ll find: A user-friendly summary of existing merit pay programs and their strengths and weaknesses Six essential principles for designing a program that supports teacher professional development, schoolwide progress, and student achievement How-to’s and tools for every phase of program development, including collaborating with teachers to create balanced assessment tools

There is a real need for a clear analysis and investigation of what the "crisis" in teaching actually is. By exploring the definition of the teaching crisis, investigating the evidence for its existence and reforms proposed to "solve" it, and studying the possible effects of proposed reforms, the authors of Crisis in Teaching address this need. Their work constitutes one of the first sustained and critical analyses of teachers and teaching in the contemporary situation. The authors, among the nation's leading critical thinkers in the field of education, reflect a variety of perspectives as they attempt to unravel the current rhetoric of crisis and question solutions that are, in effect, too often simplistic and superficial in their analyses and proposals.

For the first time, school districts around the country are being required to adopt formal accountability measures to assess teacher effectiveness. In a radical shift, teacher quality will be based on outputs (student achievement; teacher observations) rather than inputs (years of service; degrees attained). This change in school culture and practice is an attempt to improve everything from individual student learning to national economic competitiveness. It also requires that administrators implement new and rigorous teacher evaluation programs that align with state and federal guidelines. Busy administrators lack the training and experience necessary to quickly and efficiently craft a teacher evaluation system that successfully meets the needs of their district. Questions like “What is the best program for my district?” or “How do I get the teachers on-board?” are being asked by school leaders across the country. This book provides real-world answers by highlighting 10 diverse model programs from around the country.

This review of existing teacher compensation models provides school administrators with a research-based approach for developing a compensation system that attracts and retains high-quality teachers.

The book that launched a school improvement movement offers research-based recommendations drawn from the best practices found in schools nationwide for continuously improving school performance. Coming from the perspectives of both a distinguished dean of education and one of America’s most widely acclaimed practitioners, this resource provides specific, practical how-to information about transforming schools into results-oriented PLCs.