Current Initiatives
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.”
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
- 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.

