A Tool for the Analysis of Teacher Centers in American Education--A Working Paper.

This paper classifies teacher centers according to the following categories: a) their organizational structure, b) their function, and c) the relationship between "a" and "b." It is indicated that the typologies were distilled from the results of a research project that surveyed 200 teacher center sites in the United States. The paper describes and outlines the characteristics of seven organizational types of teacher centers: independent, quasi-independent, professional organization, single unit, free local partnership, free local consortium, and legislative/political consortium. It does the same for four functional types of centers: informal "English," advocacy, responsive, and undifferentiated or unique. The author observes that some combinations of structures and functions are more logical than others and that as educational planners better understand the combinations, they will design appropriate types of centers to accomplish their objectives. (LP/JA)