An educational earthquake aimed at improving the effectiveness of teachers is rumbling across the nation. So far, the quake is only beginning to affect Wisconsin. But the tremors of change are already being felt here, and more are coming. In the process, a new world of teaching is being built. Nationwide, the federal government and [...]

Norma Mortimer moves about her high school classroom with confidence born of 41 years’ experience. Directions to students are clear; she knows when to push for an answer and when to let a question hang. The English teacher formerly taught music, composed and arranged marching band music, and performed at the Bristol Renaissance Faire. “It [...]

PITTSBURGH – They call it the War Room. It looks like any other classroom inside Carrick High School, a sprawling structure that towers like a stone fortress over this working-class neighborhood on the city’s south side. It’s still dark out as 16 teachers and counselors – some clutching coffee or energy bars – sit in [...]

James Sonnenberg has a request for Gregory Thornton, the new superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools: “Give me the best you have, to work with the children who need the most.” It’s a logical request. Most business leaders put the most capable employees in the most demanding situations. But it’s also a very tough request, because, [...]

Ivelisse Cruz can barely watch the video footage from her first time teaching a math lesson. The video shows Cruz, a first-semester sophomore at Alverno College at the time, hesitantly starting her lesson seated with a group of seventh-grade students around a small table at Fairview Charter School in Milwaukee. She doesn’t quite explain what [...]

The Obama administration could not have set the stage for a better demonstration of the power and priorities of Wisconsin’s teachers unions. With its Race to the Top competition, the federal government dangled the prospect of a share of $4.35 billion for those states ready to enact reforms, especially related to improving teacher and principal [...]

Charles Moore says his job is like creating a garden where teachers and students grow. “It’s more than just strong instructional leadership,” says Moore, principal of Eastbrook Academy, a private school at 5375 N. Green Bay Ave. It’s more than just overseeing discipline or budgets or schedules or a host of other aspects of a [...]

They called it the “Canada effect” — the phenomenon in which students from a string of states along the country’s northern border regularly beat the rest of the nation on academic tests. As recently as 1992, only three states — all from northern climates — had significantly higher average scores than Wisconsin in fourth-grade reading [...]

MILWAUKEE — Before he could start student teaching in January at Sennette Middle School in nearby Madison, Andrew Johnson had to pass a multiple-choice test. The 23-year-old wants to teach high-school science, so the exam he took tested his knowledge of biology, chemistry and physics. He had to know the basic properties of an atom [...]