Learning from the Experts offers an intimate look at the ways education policies collide with everyday classroom practices and illustrates how thoughtful, solutions-oriented and results-driven teachers are reframing debates in education today. Early career teachers now make up a "new majority" (52 percent) of the workforce. Their ideas about the profession are often radically different from the previous generation's but are not often heard in education reform. Learning from the Experts draws on the work of the nonprofit organisation Teach Plus to address this divide. In this lively collection, emerging teacher leaders in dialogue with seasoned leaders weigh in on the most difficult challenges in education today. Topics include the appropriate use of data, teacher effectiveness, retaining talented teachers in high-needs schools, reforming teacher unions, supporting teacher leadership, and strengthening the teaching profession itself.

Learning from the Experts offers an intimate look at the ways education policies collide with everyday classroom practices and illustrates how thoughtful, solutions-oriented and results-driven teachers are reframing debates in education today. Early career teachers now make up a "new majority" (52 percent) of the workforce. Their ideas about the profession are often radically different from the previous generation's but are not often heard in education reform. Learning from the Experts draws on the work of the nonprofit organisation Teach Plus to address this divide. In this lively collection, emerging teacher leaders in dialogue with seasoned leaders weigh in on the most difficult challenges in education today. Topics include the appropriate use of data, teacher effectiveness, retaining talented teachers in high-needs schools, reforming teacher unions, supporting teacher leadership, and strengthening the teaching profession itself.

In the last decade, the Boston Public Schools has undergone critical reforms that have been of intense interest to school leaders and policymakers throughout the country. Under the leadership of superintendent Thomas Payzant, the Boston schools implemented extensive reform strategies that yielded notable results. Fittingly, at the end of Payzant's superintendency in September 2006, the Boston Public Schools received the Broad Prize for Urban Education for being the most improved urban school district in the country. A Decade of Urban School Reform looks at this critical era in the Boston schools and distills valuable insights and lessons for school leaders and reformers everywhere. With chapters that explore questions pertaining to governance, human resources, instruction, data collection, disabilities, community engagement, and other topics, the book offers a detailed, comprehensive portrait of a school system managing the complex and daunting tasks of system-wide reform. The result is a timely, in-depth contribution to the small group of indispensable writings on urban school reform.