Recent education reform has emphasized the importance of teacher learning in improving classroom instruction and raising student achievement. This article focuses on teachers' learning opportunities, including formal professional development and on-the-job learning that occurs through interactions with colleagues. Using data from 30 elementary schools in a mid-sized urban school district, the authors concurrently explore the relationships between teachers' formal professional development and on-the-job learning opportunities and instructional change. Results suggest that formal professional development and on-the-job opportunities to learn are both significantly associated with changes in teachers' instructional practice in mathematics and English language arts. AbstractRecent education reform has emphasized the importance of teacher learning in improving classroom instruction and raising student achievement. This article focuses on teachers' learning opportunities, including formal professional development and on-the-job learning that occurs through interactions with colleagues. Using data from 30 elementary schools in a midsized urban school district, the authors concurrently explore the relationships between teachers' formal professional development and on-the-job learning opportunities and instructional change. Results suggest that formal professional development and on-the-job opportunities to learn are both significantly associated with changes in teachers' instructional practice in mathematics and English language arts.

The institutional environment of America's schools has changed substantially as government regulation has focused increasingly on the core technical work of schools-instruction. The authors explore the school administrative response to this changing environment, describing how government regulation becomes embodied in the formal structure of four schools. Working at coupling government regulation with classroom teaching, school leaders transformed the formal structure, paying particular attention to designing new organizational routines. Analyzing the performance of these routines, the authors show how both government regulation and the technical core featured prominently, if selectively, and explore how routines enabled coupling by promoting standardization through alignment with common standards, by monitoring teacher and student performance, and by making aspects of instruction transparent.

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