February 2015 | Written by Sarah McKay
On December 5, 2014, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s DC office hosted an invitation-only gathering of fifteen federal, state, and local education policy experts in both the public and nonprofit sectors. The goal of the meeting was to explore strategies to improve Title II, Part A of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act in anticipation of the Act’s reauthorization.
During this meeting participants were encouraged to think about the teacher-quality problem in new ways by first fully exploring the root causes of the issue, which often go unexamined in the fast-moving world of public policy.
Using improvement-science techniques developed by the Carnegie Foundation to help educators and education policymakers see in their entirety the ways that systems produce problematic outcomes, we asked participants to explore the root causes this problem statement: The public education system is not adequately recruiting, retaining, and supporting a high-quality/effective teacher workforce for all students.
