Special Edition is published by the UFT Teacher Center Professional Development Program, a collaboration of the United Federation of Teachers, the New York State Education Department, New York City public schools and participating school districts, as well as metropolitan area universities and cultural institutions. The Teacher Center is a model network that is organized to respond quickly and thoughtfully to school system priorities and individual practitioners. Its unique design enables the Teacher Center to provide professional development services linking reform policy with classroom practice.

The mission of the UFT Teacher Center is to serve and support educational communities as they set high standards for students. The Teacher Center serves as a catalyst for change, nurturing learning communities as they build capacity to support student achievement. A major goal is building an infrastructure in schools to support and sustain ongoing professional development that addresses the schools’ priorities and goals.

Working from over three hundred and fifty school-based sites throughout the five boroughs, the Teacher Center focuses on:
• Enabling teachers to become proficient in content areas.
• Helping beginning teachers to succeed and remain in teaching.
• Integrating technology as a teaching and learning tool in education.
• Applying intervention/prevention practices along the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) continuum.
• Enhancing teachers’ abilities to address the instructional needs of “new Americans” in our schools.
• Disseminating, demonstrating and supporting standards-based instructional strategies in the classroom.

The UFT Teacher Center offers a wide array of services in schools, districts, boroughs and across the city. The services are designed to meet both the needs of individual educators and systemwide priorities. Five delivery components form the core of the Center’s activities:

• The Individual Professional Development Program offers direct on-site services to school staff.
• Achieving High Standards/Student-Focused Restructuring is a model providing a context and a system for helping school staffs take charge of instructional change.
• Teaching and Learning With Technology promotes the use of computers and their peripherals as necessary tools for classroom instruction and learning.
• Teachers as Learners and Leaders/Outreach Services and Networking Functions provide an arena to foster communication and the exchange of innovative instructional strategies. Included are initiatives such as the Literacy Network, Thinking Mathematics, Supporting Schools for Achievement (SURR), and Middle School, High School and Special Education Seminars.
• College and In-Service Courses utilize teachers with specialized knowledge as educational leaders who, each semester, offer more than 500 graduate courses at Teacher Center sites throughout the city. Teacher Center also cosponsors, with area colleges and universities, a number of master’s degree programs that address the interests of urban educators.

SPECIAL EDITION

UFT Teacher Center
Director: Aminda Gentile
Editor: Bea Carson, Ph.D.
Publication Coordinator: Catalina Fortino
Editorial Board:Mary Diaz, Carol Haupt, Robert Kleppel, Riva Korashan, Jonathan Molofsky, Lorraine Scorsone
Photos: Lawrence Tallis

UFT Communications Department
Art Director: Christine Mathews
Cover Design: Margot Spindelman
Consultant: Neill Rosenfeld
Photo p.1: Susan Lerner

Editorial Consultant: Susannah Driver-Barstow