The Teacher Leaders Network Forum creates a venue for accomplished teachers from across America to share their collective understanding of teaching quality, student learning, and sound education policy. Learn more about this unique community by visiting our dedicated TLN website at www.teacherleaders.org.

In their daily discussions and widely disseminated work products, members of the TLN Forum focus on what works best for the students they serve, apart from any narrow ideological or political interests. Virtual collaboration allows these busy professionals to work together on projects, participate in focused discussions with national experts, refine their leadership and advocacy skills, and publish their writing and action research in national venues including a widely read column in Teacher Magazine.

Many TLN Forum members are state and local educators of the year, National Board Certified Teachers, Presidential and Milken Award winners, and recipients of other teaching honors. They offer wisdom and insights that seldom surface in the national education policy debates dominated by academics and political think tanks. Currently, TLN Forum members teach in 35 states, and the community will continue to invite new members until our 50-state goal is reached.

Our diverse membership, now approaching 300, includes a mix of urban, suburban, and rural teachers across the PreK-12 spectrum. More than one-third of TLN Forum members work in Title I schools, including some of the most challenging inner-city schools in America. Many advise and serve on the boards of state and national groups concerned with teaching and school quality. They have achieved success as authors and bloggers, professional developers, trained mentors, policy consultants and community leaders.

On average, TLN Forum members have been professional educators for 20 years, although they range from highly successful novices to 40-year veterans with vast experience in a variety of settings. A significant majority are current classroom teachers. Others are school-based instructional coaches, lead teachers, teachers-in-residence, and teacher educators.

"My involvement in the TLN Forum has had a profound impact on my teaching and leadership in one of our state's most challenged schools,” says Betsy Rogers, the 2003 National Teacher of the Year. “We are continuously thinking about ways to improve our profession by impacting education policy. But we are also a close-knit community whose members are always there to help one another and keep each other afloat in our often very difficult work. It is the teacher community I've been searching for all my professional life."