the term has been used "to describe every imaginable combination of individuals with an interest in education—a grade-level teaching team, a school committee, a high school department, an entire school district, a state department of education, a national professional organization, and so on. In fact, the term has been used so ubiquitously that it is in danger of losing all meaning" (DuFour, 2004, p. 6)
The professional learning community concept does not offer a short cut to school improvement. It presents neither a program nor a recipe. It does provide a powerful, proven conceptual framework for transforming schools at all levels, but alas, even the grandest design eventually degenerates into hard work
Seems like people jump on the bandwagon as a quick patch to use for School Improvement in order to show progress for AYP. Having never given it a true chance, it will not succeed and then the powers that be will jump onto some other bandwagon.
Andy Carvin is the host of this PBS blog that covers everything from the extent to which teachers are obligated to police the social networks to a student nearly being expelled for administering a facebook study group for his college course. The posts were thought provoking as were some of the responses.