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Hi Diane -

Thanks so much for your comment. These are great ideas. Here are some thoughts in response:

1. You may already be familiar with the U.S. Department of Education's (ED) Teach to Lead program (teachtolead.org). ED is partnering with National Board and ASCD to advance teacher leadership in a variety of ways in schools, districts, and higher ed. programs across the country. All of the Teach to Lead teams' action plans and logic models can be found on the website. I encourage you to take a look at their ideas and work. There is another Teach to Lead Summit coming up in February that will take place in Baltimore should you want to look into attending.

2. Teacher preparation providers are starting to design these kinds of supports for new teachers, and some states have policies in place related to this. For example, Kentucky has the Kentucky Teacher Internship Program (KTIP) that requires preparation providers to follow graduates into the field for the first year, providing mentoring and evaluation. At the end of the year, the provider and the in-school mentor teacher decide whether to recommend the graduate for the full license.

3. Last, I believe there are federal loan forgiveness opportunities for teachers (e.g., through the TEACH grants in Title II of HEA) who stay in the field teaching in hard to staff schools for a number of years. However, this doesn't address your master teacher training support idea. I think that is something a number of districts and some states are experimenting with (or could consider trying) through strategic compensation reform models that reward teachers for additional roles and responsibilities while allowing them to remain in the classroom teaching.

I agree there needs to be continued thinking in this area. Perhaps with recent and upcoming movement on federal and state policy there will be more opportunities for this kind of work.

Thanks again for your note.
Cortney