Leading the Profession: An NEA Agenda for Action

Incorporating proven best practices from thousands of leading teachers from around the country, and input from an independent Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching, Van Roekel detailed three major strategies that will guide the union’s efforts to increase the quality of teacher candidates before they ever reach the classroom, to make sure that teachers remain at the top of their game throughout their careers, and to improve student learning by improving the teaching profession.

“It’s about the kids,” Van Roekel said. “NEA aims to ensure that every student has a qualified, caring and effective teacher. And NEA will support a stronger profession of teaching."

NEA's Three-Point Plan for True Education Reform

NEA President Announces New Three-Part Action Agenda to Strengthen Teaching Profession and Improve Student Learning 

Transforming Teaching: Connecting Professional Responsibility with Student Learning
Report of the Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching.

Comments by Maddie Fennell, the chairperson of the Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching

Van Roekel Announces Plan to Strengthen Teaching Profession
National Education Association (NEA) President Dennis Van Roekel today laid out a new action agenda for the nation’s largest organization of educators that will help transform the teaching profession and accelerate student learning.

Statement by U.S. Education Secretary Duncan in Support of NEA's Report on Effective Teaching 
Secretary Duncan applauds NEA's Three-Point Plan for Reform as "stepping out of our comfort zones to challenge the status quo."

What People are Saying

"'Transforming Teaching' is a bold and clear statement about what must happen to make teaching the profession it truly deserves to be. There are strong echoes in the Commission's work of the Flexner Report which shaped the medical profession a century ago; it will take giant steps--like the ones described by the Commission--if our nation's schools are ever to be as good as their promise when it comes to children and learning."

Ronald Thorpe
President and CEO
National Board for Professional Teaching Standards

“NEA President Dennis Van Roekel and Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching Commission Chair Madaline Fennell are to commended for the bold new vision encompassed in their report 'Transforming Teaching'.”

Wendy D. Puriefoy
President
Public Education Network