1. Students’ learning experiences…with weak teaching cultures are akin to an instructional lottery, in which their learning opportunities depend heavily on which teachers they draw, from class to class and year to year. Milbrey McLaughlin and Joan Talbert
McLaughlin, M., & Talbert, J. (2001). Professional learning communities and the work of high school teaching. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

2. In the factory model of schooling, quality was the variable; time was the constant. Students were given a set amount of work to do in a set period of time, then graded on the quality of what was accomplished. We held time constant and allowed quality to vary. We must turn that on its head: Hold the quality of the work constant and allow time to vary. Robert Cole and Phil Schlechty
Cole, R., & Schlechty, P. (1993). Teachers as trailblazers in restructuring. Education Digest, 58(6), 8-12.

3. National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future
There is a mismatch between the kind of teaching and learning teachers are now expected to pursue with their students and the teaching they experience in their own professional education.
National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future
National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. (1996). What matters most: Teaching for America’s future. New York.

4. The research is abundantly clear: nothing motivates a child more than when learning is valued by schools and families/community working together in partnership…These forms of [parent] involvement do not happen by accident or even by invitation. They happen by explicit strategic intervention.
Michael Fullan
Fullan, M. (1997). Broadening the concept of teacher leadership. In S. Caldwell (Ed.), Professional development in learning centered schools (ppp ). Oxford, OH: National Staff Development Council.

5. Schools are trapped by a leadership dilemma: they require skilled, effective principals in order to outgrow their utter dependence on those principals.    Tom Donahoe 
Donahoe, T. (1993). Finding the way: Structure, time and culture in school improvement. Phi Delta Kappan, 75(4),