This proposal requests a portion of the costs for a series of seminars and workshops that will bring together funders and operators of teacher networks, policy makers from state and local levels, leaders of significant educational reform projects, academics and researchers, and representatives of major professional educational organizations and associations. These planning conferences will be devoted to issues of policy and technical issues of the funder-project relationship. The policy seminars will include issues of "school restructuring", the teaching profession, and future funding areas. The technical issues seminars will include the delivery of technical assistance to funded programs, assessment issues across projects, and ideas for sustaining teacher networks. The NSF portion of the entire effort will be less than one fourth of the actual costs and will be approximately equal to the Carnegie Foundation and the Ford Foundation share.
