The Teacher Leaders Network is the virtual home to a number of communities united around improving student learning and advancing the teaching profession.

TLN Forum

The flagship community of the Teacher Leaders Network, the TLN Forum is comprised of more than 250 of the nation’s most accomplished educators who work together on projects, publish their writing and action research, participate in focused discussions with national experts, and connect with educational decision makers to advocate for best policy and practice. Read more about the TLN Forum and see why 2003 National Teacher of the Year Betsy Rogers calls it “the teacher community I’ve been searching for all my professional life.”

New Millennium Initiative

The New Millennium Initiative, launched in fall 2009, seeks to develop a growing network of young teachers to engage with researchers, reformers, administrators, union leaders and their peers in their own communities. These young teachers will gain policy expertise and learn to market their ideas as they become leaders of improved student learning. Read more.

NBCT Leadership Initiative

Nearly 13,000 National Board Certified Teachers are teaching in North Carolina — of which almost 2,000 have specialties in math and science. Currently, more than 150 of these expert teachers have signed up with the Center for Teaching Quality and TLN to provide virtual mentoring support to improve teaching quality in three high-needs school districts. Discover how this innovative initiative is transforming the idea of professional development, by putting expert teachers at the center.

TeacherSolutions

TeacherSolutions is a unique approach to amplify the voices of accomplished teachers in national education policy issues. While TeacherSolutions teams have now tackled several topics, they all share certain characteristics that make the TeacherSolutions model a particularly effective form of collaboration.

• A team of 10-20 expert teachers, representing a diverse cross-section of America’s best teachers, engage in research and analysis around a particular policy area considering both theory and current best practices.
• Team members collaborate with leading researchers and key policy stakeholders to further inform their thinking and refine their insights.
• TeacherSolutions members collaboratively authors a policy paper that is fluent in the foremost research and best practices, but also offers innovative recommendations and insights culled from their teaching expertise.

Learn more about specific TeacherSolutions projects, including

• TeacherSolutions 2030: The year is 2030. What does public education in America look like? What skills are critical for this generation of students to be successful in a global, highly interconnected world? What will the teaching profession look like? The TeacherSolutions 2030 team is currently exploring these critical questions to present their own vision for the future of teaching and learning — and the profession that makes all others possible.
• TeacherSolutions Teaching and Working Conditions: Teacher leaders come together from across the country (and three diverse urban districts) to engage the latest teacher working conditions research and use it to make better policy decisions.
• Pay for Performance Network: Teacher leaders come together around designing a teacher compensation system that students deserve.
• National Board Certification: Research team of expert teachers considers the impact of National Board Certification on student learning and teacher leadership.

ASSET

CTQ launched the Achieving School Success through Empowering Teachers (ASSET) initiative in 2005 to address the challenging issue of reducing teacher turnover in high-needs schools. Targeting five middle schools in Orange County and Wake County, NC, the overall goal of the ASSET partnership is to implement new models of distributed leadership in order to improve teacher retention and student achievement in schools throughout the region. Learn more about how ASSET is now taking advantage of virtual technology to expand the impact of the initiative.