For Immediate Release	For More Information
	Your Name		Ellen Meyers
	Your Title		Senior Vice President Teachers Network
	Phone	-OR-	212-966-5582
	Fax		212-941-1787
	E-mail		emeyers@teachersnetwork.org
			www.teachersnetwork.org

Ensuring Teacher Quality
A Report from the MetLife Fellows in the Teachers Network Leadership Institute

Teacher Leaders Bring the Teacher’s Voice into Education Policymaking

(YOUR CITY)—(YOUR NAME) of (YOUR SCHOOL) is one of 60 MetLife Fellows in the Teachers Network Leadership Institute (TNLI) who co-authored the landmark education policy document entitled Ensuring Teacher Quality—A Report from the MetLife Fellows in the Teachers Network Leadership Institute. This report, geared toward school administrators, focuses on teacher leadership and the process for engaging teachers in policy decisions at the school level and beyond in order to improve student achievement. The document outlines four cogent recommendations, based in the fellows’ collective action research findings, for ensuring teacher quality—the single most important factor in determining student success—within any school environment:

• Engage teachers in designing and implementing effective professional development.
• Provide time in the school schedule for teacher collaboration to improve instruction and student learning.
• Re-envision the teaching profession as a continuum beginning in pre-service and persisting through a lifetime of growth.
• Include teachers in the decision-making process about school resources, specifically time and money.

Ensuring Teacher Quality highlights the ways in which policy plays out in the real world of schools and classrooms. This groundbreaking report is being mailed to 5,000 school superintendents throughout the nation.

In the introduction to Ensuring Teacher Quality, the MetLife Fellows write, “The Teachers Network Leadership Institute recognizes that the most powerful influence on student achievement is the quality of teachers. We believe that quality teachers are made, not born.”
The fellows continue, “As teachers, we want to be held responsible for helping our students achieve high standards. In fairness, though, if we are to achieve this goal, teachers must be accorded the rights to working conditions that foster quality improvement: time to learn and reflect on best practice and to design meaningful instruction; access to funds to choose appropriate teaching materials; and support from teacher leaders who have demonstrated excellence.”

Teachers Network Leadership Institute—an initiative of over 100 teachers from 10 nationwide affiliates—was established in 1996 by Teachers Network to connect education policy with actual classroom practice to improve student achievement. For the past few years, MetLife Fellows in the Teachers Network Leadership Institute—all full-time classroom teachers—have researched policy issues and developed recommendations, documented their work in papers and publications, and disseminated their work locally and nationally. To get the word out, fellows give presentations to school districts and school boards, participate in major conferences, and join influential task forces and advisory boards. As a major part of their work, the fellows also conduct action research studies—addressing the direct link between policymaking and its effects on student achievement.

Summary versions of these action research papers, profiles of the fellows, and more information about TNLI is available online at: www.teachersnetwork.org/TNLI. Major funding for TNLI is provided by MetLife Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Booth Ferris Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Family Foundation.

Since its inception, TNLI has been the pioneer in offering the teacher’s voice into the national discourse on education reform. In order to expand the TNLI model to more sites across the country (current affiliates include: Charlotte (NC); Chicago (IL); Fairfax County (VA); Fayette County (KY); Miami-Dade County (FL); Los Angeles (CA); New York City (NY); Santa Barbara County (CA); Santa Clara/Santa Cruz Counties (CA); and the State of Wyoming), a TNLI Guidebook has also been published as a “how-to” for organizations interested in aligning policymaking with student learning by joining a nationwide network of affiliates with a proven track-record of success.

TNLI is a major initiative of Teachers Network. Teachers Network is a nationwide, non-profit education organization that identifies and connects innovative teachers who exemplify professionalism, independence, and creativity within public school systems.