Welcome and Introduction: Envisioning Systems That Last

The welcome presentation launched the conference theme—“Systems That Last: Great Teachers and Leaders for America’s Schools”—focusing on the importance of taking a systems approach to improving educator effectiveness policies and practices across the educator career continuum. Efforts to integrate reform efforts, such as college- and career-readiness standards and educator evaluation and support, are critical to sustaining advancements in educator effectiveness reforms over time. Following are some highlights:

• Sabrina Laine, vice president at AIR, made official opening remarks that included a “thank you” to the U.S. Department of Education for their support, a timeline of the major work of the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (TQ Center), and a review of the federal and economic impetuses for reform. Also highlighted was the increased media attention on educator quality issues.
• The conference theme, “Systems that Last,” highlights how reforms happen at multiple points in the educator career continuum and raises many questions, such as how to align multiple reforms and which reforms may be the most influential.