Taking the tack that a collegiate atmosphere of teachers improves the quality of their teaching, McLaughlin (education and public policy) and researcher Talbert, both of the Center for Research on the Context of Teaching at Stanford U. base their advice here on nearly two decades of research. They think in the long term as they describe how to build and maintain a school-based teachers' professional community, including the contributions and responsibilities of teachers and policy makers, working through the empirical evidence that such communities benefit students, the challenges of creating a culture in which schools become learning communities, the methods of getting started and developing communities of practice in schools, including case illustrations, contributions of off-site professional development and other methods, working with system administrators, teachers' organizations, parents and community members, and considering the district as a unit of sustained change. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)