new professional model of practitioner research" (p. 370).
One possible model for full-time adult education or K-12 teachers would be to allow them to retain their full-time status for purposes of salary, schedule, tenure, seniority, retirement, and benefits, but to reduce their teaching loads so they would have time to carry out research. This arrangement is not very different from what exists in resource specialist positions, in which full-time teachers spend part of their time developing materials and curriculum for other teachers. A teacher/researcher or research specialist could teach 20 hrs a week and research 20 hrs a week for the duration of a research project. Given that most K-12 and adult school budgets do not allow for research, teachers would have to secure funds through grant proposals. Funding sources likely to sponsor adult and K-12 action research include private foundations, the U.S. Department of Education, and state departments of education (Stoynoff & Camacho, 1998). In order to receive grants, teachers also would have to demonstrate their ability to carry out research. Many MATESOL programs currently have a strong research component, but teachers without research training would have to acquire such skills. Some teachers come to teaching with previous research experience and the necessary skills to engage in research, but others do not. The latter may acquire these skills by taking graduate-level research courses offered by colleges of education.
Action research emerged as a new theoretical research model in the 1980s. Since then, it has gained acceptance but lacks the structures that will allow K-12 and adult education teachers to implement it. The changes we could help bring about in the K-12 and adult education systems with our own action research are much needed.