The Changing Teaching Environment. Occasional Paper Series.

This monograph describes a research program that will assess the cumulative effects of education policies on the teaching environment. It also focuses on how these policy outcomes affect the ability of schools to attract and retain highly qualified teachers and principals. The document presents the results of interviews conducted at two elementary schools that were intended to uncover how school-reform policies affected teachers. All of the nine teachers who were interviewed were in the process of incorporating standards, standardized testing, and/or accountability into their daily teaching regimens. The paper comments on the rapid pace of reforms, societal issues, resources for reform implementation, the quality of the teaching environment, and the implementation of future reforms. The interviews revealed that teachers tended to see negative outcomes from reforms, with such side effects as compressed teaching schedules and the neglect of certain subjects. The monograph then turns to schooling in England, Germany, and Japan in a comparative analysis of education policy in these countries. It provides the historical context of the school systems in all three countries, providing information on their governance and organization, how they assess students and provide them access to higher education, how they track students, how they educate students with disabilities, and how they train and develop teachers. (RJM)