In education, it's widely known that what gets measured or assessed is what ultimately gets taught or followed through with in the school. So, by broadening accountability to include non-academic indicators, schools will be forced to start measuring things like student engagement, or access to advanced coursework. One of the indicators that is allowed by ESSA is school climate and safety.

If you’re a teacher in training, I bet you’re already thinking about your first teaching job. Where will I teach? How much money will I make? Will my students like me? Though all valid questions, I want to discuss one that may not have crossed your mind: How do I know if a school is a good fit? In this article, we’ll explore how to determine if potential schools are a good fit.

Teachers are the ultimate life-long learners, not only because they love education but because their certification usually requires hundreds of hours of continued development. Like all other professionals, including doctors, lawyers, and engineers, teachers, too, have to stay on top of the latest research and best practices in order to renew their licenses and credentials. For teachers, this new learning can lead to major change in the classroom-- new techniques to implement with students, new ways to think about instruction, and new ways to create a vibrant school community focused on learning and success.

For high school English teachers, starting a poetry unit is tricky business. Get it wrong, and students are likely to fall asleep in the middle of your lessons, or give up when they think a poem is too challenging. When starting any unit, you need to ‘prime the pump,’ and make students excited about what’s to come.

Large networks of schools all over the world hire American teachers, offering a great opportunity to live and work in a foreign country while gaining valuable, unique professional experience. If the idea of setting up a classroom in another country appeals to you, here are some tips:  

A topic often overlooked by many teacher preparation programs is how to land your first teaching job after graduation. Fortunately, new teachers have some advantages right out of the gate. The first is that many states suffer from teacher shortages. The second is that new teachers have a greater variety of tools to network and show off their skills to potential employers.