The TeachStrong campaign brings together teachers unions, teacher voice organizations, and education reform, civil rights, and education policy leaders to make modernizing and elevating the teaching profession the top education policy issue of 2016.
Washington, D.C. — Momentum continues to grow for TeachStrong, a national campaign to make modernizing and elevating the teaching profession the top education policy of 2016 and beyond. In November 2015, the campaign launched with 40 partner organizations and grew to 50 by December. Today the campaign is announcing that it has added five additional partner organizations to the coalition, bringing the total number of partners to 55. The diverse group of stakeholders is united by the fundamental belief that attracting, retaining, and supporting great teachers is essential to student achievement throughout the country.
“As we begin this new year, TeachStrong continues to bring together influential education leaders and groups in order to support our nation’s teachers,” said Catherine Brown, Vice President for Education Policy at the Center for American Progress. “Increased standards and expectations for students, teachers, and administrators have laid the groundwork for this important effort. Now is the time for teachers to get the support they need so every student has an excellent teacher in every classroom.”
The five new partners joining TeachStrong include:
- Christensen Institute
- Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education
- Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education
- National Association for the Education of Young Children
- National Writing Project
“Teacher Leaders are the heart of our mission and organization,” said Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, National Writing Project’s executive director. “We are excited to join the campaign with so many partners focused on cultivating and supporting teachers in their vital role within schools and communities.”
Rhian Evans Allvin, executive director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, or NAEYC, said: “Great teaching begins long before children enter kindergarten. NAEYC is proud to join with so many organizations who know that high-quality educators are the backbone of a high-quality education, and who are committed to having diverse, effective educators and leaders working within a compensation and recognition system that supports their excellence.”
Collectively, the coalition believes that all students, especially those from low-income families, deserve to be taught by great teachers. To accomplish this goal, the coalition believes that the United States must modernize and elevate the teaching profession and strengthen the entire teacher career continuum. This will require investing in and developing policies that better recruit, prepare, support, and compensate teachers through all stages of their careers. The coalition has coalesced around nine policy principles:
- Identifying and recruiting more teacher candidates with great potential to succeed, with a deliberate emphasis on diversifying the teacher workforce
- Reimagining teacher preparation to make it more rooted in classroom practice and a professional knowledge base, with universal high standards for all candidates
- Raising the bar for licensure so it is a meaningful measure of readiness to teach
- Increasing compensation in order to attract and reward teachers as professionals
- Providing support for new teachers through induction or residency programs
- Ensuring tenure is a meaningful signal of professional accomplishment
- Providing significantly more time, tools, and support for teachers to succeed, including through planning, collaboration, and development
- Designing professional learning to better address student and teacher needs and to foster feedback and improvement
- Creating career pathways that give teachers opportunities to lead and grow professionally
In addition to the five new groups listed above, the organizational partners in TeachStrong are: Albert Shanker Institute; Alliance for Excellent Education; America Achieves; American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education; American Federation of Teachers; Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development; Center for American Progress; Council of Chief State School Officers; Center on the Future of American Education; Deans for Impact; Democrats for Education Reform; Digital Promise; Education Post; EducationCounsel; Education Reform Now; The Education Trust; the Education Policy Program at New America; Educators 4 Excellence; Educators Rising; Emerson Collective; Generation Schools Network; Hope Street Group; Knowledge Alliance; Leading Educators; Learning Forward; National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; National Center for Learning Disabilities; National Center for Teacher Residencies; National Center on Time and Learning; National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future; National Council on Teacher Quality; National Education Association; National Institute for Excellence in Teaching; National Network of State Teachers of the Year; National Women’s Law Center; New Leaders; New Teacher Center; Public Impact; Relay Graduate School of Education; Stand for Children; Teach For America; Teaching Matters; Teach Plus; The Teacher Salary Project; TESOL International Association; Third Way; The New Teacher Project; Urban Teachers; The VIVA Project; and The Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation.
More information about the campaign can be found at TeachStrong.org.
For more information, contact [email protected].