Works in Progress


CTP Topics of Interest:

Policy, Leadership & the Quality of Teaching

School-based Instructional Improvement and Intervention

Strengthening Teacher Development & Careers

CTP examines how the character and quality of teaching and learning are shaped by the environments in which they take place. Of particular concern are the following:

  • The working environment of the school.
  • The professional environment, which guides teachers' norms, beliefs, and skills.
  • The community environment, which sets aspirations and expectations for young people's education.
  • The environment of local, state, and federal policies that guide, direct, and support activity within schools.

The Center's research program is built around two large-scale, long-term, field-based investigations:

  1. The Study of Policy Environments and the Quality of Teaching (CTP's "Core Study") examines connections between teaching and the state, district, and school policy environments in selected systems within California, New York, North Carolina, and Washington State. The Study of Instructional Improvement (conducted jointly with the Consortium for Policy Research in Education), aims to advance a theory of instruction and instructional improvement through an analysis of instructional practice and teacher learning in 125 elementary schools engaged in several kinds of comprehensive whole-school reforms.

Additional analytic work and complementary studies by CTP researchers add perspective to the understandings emerging from these two primary investigations.

Center studies and analyses address the topics outlined below. Click on each study title for a description of ongoing and completed research. At the end of each CTP Study Description are links to the publications that, to date, have emerged from the given research study. In addition, all CTP publications are listed and available for download from the Publications page.

CTP Research Studies:

Policy, Leadership, & the Quality of Teaching

School-based Instructional Improvement and Intervention

Strengthening Teacher Development & Careers
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Modified Date: 3/20/2002 Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington, 2001