Teacher Working Conditions. CTQ is helping lead an increasingly national movement to better understand and improve the conditions under which teachers work and students learn. Beginning with a partnership with Governor Easley in North Carolina, CTQ has led statewide initiatives to assess teacher working conditions in North and South Carolina and pilot initiatives in Ohio and Virginia. During the 2005-2006 school year, CTQ will conduct a similar initiative in Nevada and will also partner with the National Education Association (NEA) to work with state affiliate led coalitions in Kansas, Colorado and additional states to conduct statewide efforts. Working with BellSouth North Carolina and the BellSouth Foundation, along with an assortment of state partners and stakeholders, CTQ is also further developing a comprehensive toolkit (www.teacherworkingconditions.org) that will enable schools and communities across the country to make data-based decisions about improving teacher working conditions, and subsequently student achievement.

Improving Teaching Quality through Public Engagement. The Public Education Network (PEN) recently received a second grant from the Goldman Sachs Foundation, and has committed to working with CTQ on the grant to improve teaching quality policies and practices through public engagement efforts in five local school communities. The project is being implemented through partnerships with local education funds (LEFs), including Durham, Mobile, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle. The effort includes a multifaceted strategy of data collection and analysis, advocacy, and resource leveraging—all in an effort to transform the way districts, schools, communities, and the public work together to address teacher quality issues and to improve learning for all children.

IBM Transitions to Teaching. CTQ is working closely with the recently announced IBM Transition to Teaching program, a unique venture to bring skilled mid-career private sector employees into the teaching profession. IBM has asked Barnett Berry, President of CTQ, to serve as an advisor in the design and pilot phase of the initiative which will allow United States employees in various geographic areas to participate in a high quality alternative route program. The program, which will be launched in North Carolina and New York initially, will include online and university-based course work, online mentoring, and student teaching so that the former IBM employees can meet state teacher licensure standards.

Recruiting and Retaining Teachers in Hard-to-Staff Schools. CTQ has been awarded separate grants from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, the Payne Family Foundation and the Charles & Mary Grant Foundation to conduct multi-year field research, policy development and technical assistance efforts to inform and improve teacher recruitment and retention efforts in the schools that struggle most to attract and keep the teachers they need. There have been few efforts to systematically examine which teacher recruitment and retention initiatives and incentives are working, why, and under what conditions. CTQ will fill this critical knowledge gap by collecting new and unique data from recruitment and retention efforts in select North Carolina and Alabama districts and subsequently using this information to help policymakers, practitioners and communities create reforms that ensure quality teachers for all students.

Achieving Student Success through Empowering Teachers (ASSET). With support from the Wachovia Foundation’s Teachers and Teaching Initiative, CTQ, in collaboration with the Wake Education Partnership and the Education Foundation of Orange County will collaborate on a project to reduce teacher turnover. The project will develop teacher and principal leadership for transforming schools and improving student achievement. CTQ will also work with the two local education funds to enhance new teacher induction programs and develop strategies for building broad public support for the sustainability and institutionalization of these reforms.

New Board of Directors. In order to best achieve the national and regional scopes of work described above, Tom Lambeth, chair of the CTQ Board of Directors, is proud to announce the addition of four new board members – Betsy Rogers, National Board Certified Teacher, Brighton School, and 2003 National Teacher of the Year; Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Teaching and Teacher Education, Stanford University; Arthur Wise, President of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education; and Sharon Robinson, President of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education.

These national leaders join talented and committed board members, John Dornan, Executive Director of the Public School Forum of North Carolina; Leslie Graitcer, former Executive Director of the BellSouth Foundation; and Gwynn Virostek, Senior Vice President and South Florida Group Manager of Washington Mutual. Lambeth believes “the new composition of the CTQ Board of Directors positions the organization as a national player on the most important teaching and learning developments across the nation.”

Staffing Changes. The new Board of Directors' work will be supported by important staff changes. While Barnett Berry, founder of CTQ, will continue in his role as President, Eric Hirsch has been promoted to Executive Director. Berry noted, “The change recognizes Eric’s considerable leadership skills and his unique contributions to teaching quality — especially his efforts to bring teacher working conditions to the forefront of the teaching quality agenda. The change will also give me more time to write, speak, and build our national presence and promote teaching as the profession it must become to close the student achievement gap.”

Hirsch commented that the mission of the organization remains constant, “The Center for Teaching Quality remains an organization fully committed to improving student learning through developing teacher leadership, conducting practical research and engaging various communities. We are simply following a natural growth pattern for CTQ to address teaching quality across the nation. Our ideas, our work and our mission have become truly national in scope.”