Supported by a start-up grant from the BellSouth Foundation, the mission of the Southeast Center for Teaching Quality is to promote the creation and advancement of high-quality teacher development systems in the southeastern United States. The Center works in partnership with the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. NCTAF is currently engaged with 19 partner states in implementing the recommendations of two influential Commission reports: What Matters Most (1996) and Doing What Matters Most (1997).

The Southeast Center for Teaching Quality is guided by an advisory board of education, business, and civic leaders in the nine-state BellSouth region. The office has engaged both its advisory board and many other stakeholders in the region and has identified a strategic course of action that includes:

• Establishing a regional clearinghouse for information on teaching quality issues and data;
• Supporting the creation of teaching quality "alliances" in the Southeast that focus on priorities identified by key constituencies;
• Helping states develop common definitions for critical teacher-quality indicators -- a necessary prerequisite for a regional data-gathering and reporting system that can undergird effective policy development and public engagement; and
• Promoting leadership development among diverse stakeholders and constituencies, including specific strategies to draw upon the expertise of teacher, administrator, university, business, and local school policy leaders.

View Discussion with Charles Coble, Tom Carroll, and Barnett Berry
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