Teacher Quality:
Ensuring Excellence in Every Classroom

Selected Resources
A companion to the March 2002 Satellite Town Meeting

Teacher Quality

The Troops to Teachers Program

The goal of the Troops to Teachers program is to help improve American education by providing mature, motivated, experienced, and dedicated ex-military personnel for the nation's classrooms. The current program provides referral assistance, placement services and stipends to military personnel interested in becoming teachers after their military service.

Teach for America

The mission of Teach for America is to build a corps of outstanding recent college graduates of all academic majors who commit two years to teach in public schools in low-income communities. Each year, Teach For America selects a corps of more than 1000 individuals, trains them together during summer institutes, places them as full-time, paid teachers in urban and rural public schools, and coordinates an ongoing network to support them during their two year commitment and beyond.

The New Teacher Project

The New Teacher Project (NTP) works with school districts, states and other educational entities to enhance their capacity to recruit, select, train, and support outstanding new teachers. Since its launch over three years ago, The New Teacher Project has attracted and prepared over 2600 outstanding new teachers, launched 19 programs in 10 states, and developed 10 pre-service training institutes.

The National Council on Teacher Quality

The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) is a nonprofit organization devoted to the pursuit of teacher quality. The National Council on Teacher Quality and the Education Leaders Council have received a $5 million grant from the United States Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Education to create the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE). ABCTE will develop a national credentialing system for educators that will gauge their knowledge of subject matter and pedagogy through rigorous standardized tests.

National Board for Professional Teaching Standards

Created in 1987, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards' (NBPTS) mission is to advance the quality of teaching and learning by maintaining high and rigorous standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do, establish a national voluntary system certifying teachers who meet these standards, and advocate related education reforms to integrate National Board Certification in American education and capitalize on the expertise of National Board Certified Teachers.

American Federation of Teachers

With more than one million members nationwide, the mission of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), AFL-CIO, is to improve the lives of their members and their families by giving voice to their legitimate professional, economic and social aspirations. AFT is an ever-present voice for the high-quality public education for every citizen, and efficient and effective delivery of public services -- especially for our children.

The Call Me Mister Project

The Call Me Mister project seeks to recruit, train, certify and secure employment for 200 black males as elementary teachers in South Carolina's public schools over a six-year period. The program combines the special strengths and resources of Clemson University with individualized instructional programs offered by three small, private, historically black colleges in South Carolina.

The Transition to Teaching Program

The Transition to Teaching Program provides grants for the recruitment, training, placement of talented individuals from other fields into teaching positions in K-12 classrooms and support for them during their first years in the classroom. In particular, the program targets mid-career professionals from various fields who possess strong subject-matter skills and recent college graduates with outstanding academic records and a baccalaureate degree in a field other than teaching.

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