On behalf of all of us at NCTQ, Happy New Year. Last year was an exciting year for us and we hope that the new year will bring more success on behalf of raising teacher quality and improving student achievement.

We have a few important announcements. Immediately before the holidays, NCTQ elected a new Board of Directors, to be chaired by Andrew J. Rotherham of the Progressive Policy Institute. I am privileged to serve at the behest of a group of individuals, each of whom has individually demonstrated a commitment to pushing for reforms in the teaching profession. Energized by our new board and excited by the possibility for progress in 2004, NCTQ will work hard to promote policies that improve teacher quality, using student achievement as our ultimate measure. On Monday, January 12 the names of our new board will be listed on our website.

From the inception of NCTQ in 2001, its founders were determined to make both intellectual and concrete contributions to teacher quality. That commitment was realized with the launch of a ground breaking project to create a new alternative route to teaching known as the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence. The American Board gives talented individuals access to the teaching profession who would otherwise have been dissuaded by the traditional system for preparing and licensing teachers in the United States. With the strong support of the US Department of Education, the American Board has taken on a life of its own. We have decided that it is time for the American Board to become its own independent entity under the leadership of Dr. Kathleen Madigan. We still strongly support the efforts of the American Board but, as of January 1, we are two fully separate organizations.

I would also like to take this opportunity to correct a misleading article that appeared recently in the Washington Post and that may have confused people about NCTQ and its activities. The Post piece identified a select list of "right wing" groups who were awarded large sums of federal money on the basis of their political connections. The article highlights a $9 million grant to the National Council on Teacher Quality for the purposes of "teacher training." NCTQ has not received any such grant. NCTQ did receive sizeable grants to launch and develop the American Board exams. With the independence of ABCTE, all NCTQ grant funds have been turned over this new organization.

Despite the impressions of the article, NCTQ is not an ideological organization and not the beneficiary of favoritism. We are fiercely committed to a nonpartisan standing, and actively welcome persons of all political stripes who seek to introduce important reforms to the structure of the teaching profession.

Kate Walsh

President