Teaching As Leadership The Highly Effective Teacher's Guide to Closing the Achievement Gap

"Eliminating our nation's unjust achievement gap and providing schools where all children can learn is part of the unfinished business of the Civil Rights Movement and of our nation. Teach For America is dedicated to this goal—and this new book is a terrific resource that shares the valuable lessons learned from studying highly effective teachers and successful classrooms across the country."
—Marian Wright Edelman, president, Children's Defense Fund

"Every teacher, principal, and superintendent should read this book. Over the last two years, we have seen our students' reading, writing, and math skills improve significantly. The principles outlined in Teaching As Leadership have played a critical role in our progress."
—Andrés Alonso, chief executive officer, Baltimore City Schools

"By assessing the actions of highly effective teachers in some of America's most challenging teaching environments, Teach For America outlines key strategies to close the achievement gap—investing in students and their families, planning purposefully, and working relentlessly. This inspiring book will inform the work of everyone engaged in the training and support of teachers in high-poverty schools."
—Kathleen McCartney, dean of Harvard Graduate School of Education and Gerald S. Lesser Professor in Early Childhood Development

"For new teachers, there is no substitute for getting into a classroom and suffering the pain and frustration of finding what works best for them. This book, however, offers new teachers a resource sure to make those first months a little less difficult. Teaching As Leadership assembles wisdom from dozens of successful Teach For America teachers, addressing every problem one could imagine. This is a smart gift for the new teacher in your family."
—Jay Mathews, Washington Post education columnist and author, Work Hard. Be Nice: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America

"From its very beginnings, Teach For America has invested more energy in understanding effective teaching than any teacher preparation program I know. And year after year, they have fed that information back into their own selection processes and teacher supports with a single goal: producing more teachers who can change the life chances of poor children. With this book, they have distilled what they are learning—along with relevant research—into a guide that is at once both fabulously readable and highly practical. If I had three thumbs, they would all be pointed up."
—Kati Haycock, president, Education Trust

"Teaching As Leadership works. This is the approach taken by teachers who lead diverse students to great academic achievements."
—Beverly Hall, superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools and 2009 National Superintendent of the Year