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The article focuses on issues related to the search of a successor to the outgoing superintendent of the Boston, Massachusetts school district, Thomas W. Payzant. Last week, with the aim of informing the transition, two prominent education policy groups released a study of the district's accomplishments under Mr. Payzant. With the same intent, more papers on his track record are in the works for a conference planned for June 2006. And later this week, a coalition of more than a dozen Boston community groups is set to hold a meeting to gather public comments to pass on to the search committee. Parents there will be urged to brine their concerns about the district to the finalists for the job once they're announced next month.

The article reports that a group of researchers was enlisted to take the tenure of school superintendent Thomas W. Payzant, who retired last month after more than a decade on the job, to help the Boston, Massachusetts district's next top administrator tackle its challenges. With $400,000 from the Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has invested heavily in the Boston district under Payzant, the project produced papers assessing progress in six areas: human resources, leadership training, teaching and learning, use of data, high schools, and special education.

According to David M. Steiner, an associate teacher of education at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts, education is something that is not being taught in many teacher-education programs. Steiner reviewed more than 200 course outlines from 16 education schools. Steiner's findings were part of a recent draft paper, which concluded that education teachers are too often trying to teach teachers an ideology.