The Washington Post – Lyndsey Layton
“A coalition of 40 education groups — including some strange bedfellows — is starting a national campaign aimed at “modernizing and elevating” the teaching profession. The groups, organized by the left-leaning Center for American Progress under the banner TeachStrong, want to make the status of teachers an issue in the 2016 presidential race and in policy discussions on the state and local levels. “We feel like this is the perfect time to bring people together who are hungry to turn the page on some of the contentious fights around testing and accountability,” said Carmel Martin, executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress. “What we need now is to focus on high-quality instruction, and there’s a lot of agreement that the way to do that is to get strong teachers in every classroom. We think this should be the next big reform in education.” The coalition, which the center is announcing Tuesday, includes Teach for America and the two major teachers unions, which have criticized that group and other alternative teacher certification programs for inadequate training.”(more)