On Top of the News
How To Build a Better Teacher: Groups Push a 9-Point Plan Called TeachStrong
Washington Post | 11/9/15

Behind the Headline
High Hurdles
Education Next| Spring 2003

A coalition of 40 education groups is launching a campaign called TeachStrong aimed at “modernizing and elevating” the teaching profession, reports Lyndsey Layton in the Washington Post.

She explains

The groups, organized by the left-leaning Center for American Progress under the banner TeachStrong, want to make the status of teachers an issue in the 2016 presidential race and in policy discussions on the state and local levels.

Among the signers are the AFT, the NEA, Teach for America, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Layton notes

After much discussion, the coalition members settled on nine principles, which call for careful recruitment, better training and higher standards for people who want to become teachers. The coalition also called for more support, better pay and high-quality professional training once teachers are in the classroom.

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In “High Hurdles,” Chester E. Finn Jr. looks at the history of efforts to boost the teaching profession since “A Nation at Risk” was published by the National Commission on Excellence in Education in 1983.

Rick Hess wrote “How to Get the Teachers We Want,” for the Summer 2009 issue of Ed Next.

In an episode of the Ed Next book club podcast, Mike Petrilli interviewed Dana Goldstein about her book The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession.  The book, a New York Times bestseller, looks at key debates over education policy and the teaching profession.

—Education Next