Dear School Board Member,

As a member of our community, I am concerned about the future of our children and their education. I know that fixing our schools is a complex problem. But I also know that the most critical solution to this problem is making sure that we have effective teachers.

Every student deserves a great teacher. Likewise, teachers deserve the encouragement, support and training that they need to be great teachers. And we need to be able to recruit, retain and reward the very best teachers. Our students deserve no less.

I urge you to make teacher effectiveness a top priority by taking the following actions:

• Promote policies that recruit the best teachers in the classroom, then give them incentives to stay.
• Support teachers by giving them proven training, coaching and time to collaborate with other teachers to share what’s working.
• Evaluate teachers using several factors – such as classroom observations, overall school performance and, most importantly, student performance – and then reward them for their results.

I look forward to hearing what you are doing to support great teachers.

Sincerely,

Your Name