The Teacher Leaders Network is a major initiative of the Center for Teaching Quality, bringing the voice of accomplished teachers to the task of improving teaching quality and student achievement. The initial vision for TLN arose from the 2001 report, Redefining the Teacher as Leader (pdf download), which concluded that there are many thousands of accomplished teachers who possess the knowledge and skills needed to transform American education. The task force report urged education decision makers to “exploit a potentially splendid resource for leadership and reform that is now being squandered: the experience, ideas, and capacity to lead of the nation’s schoolteachers.”

Launched in 2003 with grant support from Washington Mutual Bank, TLN began as an experiment in virtual community building among a representative group of identified teacher leaders in five southeastern states. As CTQ founder and president Barnett Berry recalls:

"Our initial goal was to create opportunities for emerging teacher leaders to collaborate, share their knowledge and experience, and access resources that would strengthen their ability to lead. We were operating on faith and out of a belief that many successful teachers were hungry for opportunities to work together in ways that would build the teaching profession."

In March 2003, CTQ invited 200 accomplished teachers to participate in a three-month series of online discussions about important educational issues. "We were certain the dialogue would be rich and insightful – and indeed it was," Berry remembers. "We were less certain that these busy professionals would find enough value in the experience to stay involved after our trial period. Would we be able to transform this temporary caucus of strangers into a vibrant professional community?"

The answer was a powerful "Yes." More than 80 percent of the participating teacher leaders opted to remain in the Network, forming our central community of the TLN Forum [link to internal page]. In the years since, TLN Forum members have sustained an uninterrupted daily conversation over the Internet, sharing more than 30,000 exchanges on matters related to education policy, student success, and the professional work of teachers.