Chapter 1: Why Teacher Quality?: An Introduction to the 2006 Milken National Education Conference

Welcome to the 2006 Milken Family Foundation National Education Conference, under the banner of “How Stakeholders Can Support Teacher Quality.” For more than two decades, our Foundation has supported the generative partnership among America’s best educators, policy leaders, and business, academic, foundation and community leaders because we know that the challenges of school reform require this kind of ongoing collaboration. Now in its 17th year, the National Education Conference continues to present a unique opportunity to form and strengthen such partnerships.

Past conference attendees have moved forward the debate and action on many issues, ranging from early childhood education to learning technology to standards and assessment. At this conference, we will focus our attention on the overriding issue in which everyone has a crucial stake— and that is “teacher quality.” We will examine the role that the private sector, education, government and teachers themselves can, or should, play in supporting, developing and leading initiatives that will attract high caliber people to the American teaching profession, then creating an environment in which this talent can thrive.