Last Wednesday, February 15, Education Secretary Arne Duncan unveiled the Obama Administration’s $5 billion proposal to improve the teaching profession at every level – recruitment and retention, training, the career ladder and pay and tenure.

The program, known as the RESPECT Project (Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence and Collaborative Teaching), would be structured much like “Race to the Top” – the competitive federal grant program that asked states to submit performance proposals.

Although the details have yet to be developed, Duncan vowed to take a “comprehensive” look at the teaching profession. Among the changes, those that may affect Evergreen are:

• Reforming Teacher Colleges and making them more selective
• Creating new career ladders for teachers
• Improving professional development

According to Duncan, this is the first time the Obama Administration has taken such a comprehensive look at the overall teaching profession  – including the teacher-training programs that feed into it.” He went onto say, “Many of our schools of education are mediocre at best … many teachers are poorly trained and isolated in their classrooms.”

What this means for Evergreen at this point is unknown. We will continue to monitor and update the blog when new developments unfold.