The origins of the Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ) can be traced back to the landmark teacher development blueprint conceived by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future in its 1996 landmark report. In What Matters Most, The Commission charted a coherent system of teacher recruitment, education, professional development, compensation, and school design that could dramatically close the achievement gap. Barnett Berry, founder of CTQ, worked closely with NCTAF founding executive director Linda Darling-Hammond, assisting in the report’s development and launching NCTAF’s state partnership network, whose purpose was to help political and education leaders implement policies that would professionalize teaching in ways that would enable all students to reach higher academic standards.

Launched in 1999 by the BellSouth Foundation as the Southeast Center for Teaching Quality, a regional NCTAF affiliate, we have evolved to become the national Center for Teaching Quality. In our first decade of work, CTQ has engaged in a wide variety of policy and research initiatives — developing sound teaching quality data bases; assessing the impact of the No Child Left Behind teacher quality requirements; studying the impact of high stakes accountability on teachers’ professional development; analyzing what it takes to recruit and retain accomplished (including National Board Certified) teachers for hard-to-staff, low-performing schools; and promoting innovative models of teacher preparation and leadership development.

Today, the Center for Teaching Quality seeks to advance a 21st century teaching profession -- from strengthening pre-service education and induction programs, to cultivating the growth of teacher leadership and expert collaboration on behalf of all students. CTQ has emerged as a national resource for policymakers and practitioners, and for business and community leaders who want to apply new ideas and tools to solve America’s teaching quality and supply problems. As a research-based advocacy organization, CTQ focuses primarily on (1) cultivating leadership opportunities for America’s best teachers to improve teaching and learning policies; (2) conducting research into the conditions of teaching that allow teachers to most effectively improve student learning; and (3) crafting policy interventions that promote teaching quality and student achievement – two closely entwined concepts that are critical to the success of America’s public schools and its democratic way of life.