News

Let’s try to re-center our instructional stances in that place where our own joy and motivation to learn prevails.

This National Teacher Appreciation Week, we share our gratitude for the educators who lend a part of themselves, are champions of students at every stage of their lives, affirm the cultural backgrounds of young people, foster lasting relationships in the classroom, empower agency within students, and so much more. 

Each year, our annual report is an opportunity for us to share our accomplishments working in service to educators and students nationwide. And this year, we are highlighting some of the pre-work and post-work that goes into every successful partnership.

As humans, we need and want to explore and understand the world around us — to learn. That's why we wrote The Elephant in the (Class)room. It reminds us that we're all learners. The Elephant trumpets that teaching and learning is a beautifully dynamic, relational human exchange. And that our humanity is the beating heart of our classrooms and every corner of the ecosystem we call "school." Today, we're excited to share The Elephant in the (Class)room with you.

New Teacher Center (NTC) is pleased to announce that Feliza I. Ortiz-Licon, Ed.D., has joined the organization as our chief of staff. Her role is to provide leadership in the executive office, advocate for NTC stakeholders, and align strategic priorities with enterprise-level work to advance our mission.

As we turn the page on 2022, I’m so grateful for the determined and dedicated group of changemakers we partner with both within NTC and across the nation. In my early tenure at NTC, I am heartened and guided by the compassion and wisdom of our staff, partners, supporters, and others leading this movement. You are the heart of our community, and our collective work is an example of the sustained equity practice we must all engage in in service to our young people.

We explore the following questions: How might a through-year assessment system more effectively serve the primary purpose of assessment: improving teaching, instruction, and student learning? And how will this shift be experienced by those most commonly shouldering the weight of educational shifts - teachers and students?

Tommy Chang shares his story as a six-year-old immigrant student in America, catalyzing a lifelong relationship with public education. As a teacher, a principal, a district leader, and now CEO of New Teacher Center, Tommy is driven by his personal journey and deep understanding that authentic relationships rooted in equity are critical to enable everyone in the school community, and beyond, to thrive.

This week, NTC staff will take a much-needed pause. The journey to meet our mission requires time away to collect ourselves, and connect with gratitude for the ordinary and extraordinary. Our work is fulfilling and demanding, and along the way, that tug of urgency often pulls us away from the other things that give us light, love, joy, and life.

The board is confident in Tommy’s abilities to stand on the shoulders of those who have stood before him and continue to advance the organization’s work to disrupt the predictability of educational inequities for systemically underserved students by accelerating educator effectiveness.