The major portion of this issue of the Bulletin consists of reports of various aspects of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) Project on the Induction of Beginning Teachers, a three-year demonstration program (involving 188 beginning teachers and 37 cooperating teachers in 33 schools in Michigan, Virginia, Missouri, Ohio, and Florida) designed to discover means by which the critical first years can be made better ones in order to reduce the teacher dropout rate. Other papers relating to the professional development of new teachers are also included. Section 1, "That First Year: The Way It Is," includes articles describing the first year as s"en from the viewpoint of a teacher educator, a beginning teacher, and school administrators. Section 2 consists of three articles describing new patterns of induction used in a New York State project, in a Hawaii project, and in the Teacher Corps. Section 3, devoted entirely to reports of the NASSP project, includes articles by the director, the assistant director, two beginning teachers, a cooperating teacher, a school-based inservice leader, and two principals. Both articles in Section 4, "Preparation and Beginning," focus on the effects of preservice preparation on the experiences of beginning teachers. (JS)