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Great teaching remains the bedrock of student academic success. However, recruiting and supporting effective teachers has become increasingly difficult in recent years. Education spending has steadily increased since the pandemic, yet teacher salaries remain stagnant and educator morale low. What’s more, the bipartisan reform consensus on teachers that anchored the Bush-Obama era is a distant memory. Greater political division now constrains the policies that will shape the future of the teaching profession.

Amid that backdrop, the Program on Education Policy and Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government hosted six one-hour virtual sessions with the nation’s leading policymakers, scholars, and experts on K-12 teacher policy. The purpose of this virtual series is to examine current challenges to reforming the teaching profession to drive student academic success. All sessions are now available to watch below.

Moderators:

Paul E. Peterson
Director, Program on Education Policy and Governance, Harvard University 

Michael Hartney
Hoover Institution Fellow, Stanford University

Agenda and Video

May 2

Why aren’t we paying teachers more?

Panelists:
Michael Hansen, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Brown Center on Education Policy, Brookings Institution
Michael McShane, Director of National Research at EdChoice
Aaron Garth Smith, Director of Education Reform at the Reason Foundation

MAY 9

Can teachers be paid a better way?

Panelists:
Chad Aldeman, Founder of Read Not Guess
Eric Hanushek, Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution
Andrew Johnston, Assistant Professor of Economics at University of California, Merced

MAY 16

Should teachers be held accountable for student outcomes?

Panelists:
Thomas S. Dee, Barnett Family Professor at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution
Matthew Kraft, Associate Professor of Education and Economics at Brown University
Michelle Rhee, Former Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools

MAY 23

What is the teacher’s role in civics education?

Panelists: 
Paul Carrese, Professor, School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, Arizona State University;Senior Fellow, The Jack Miller Center
Morgan Polikoff, Professor, Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California 
Robert Pondiscio, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute

MAY 30

What is the union impact on student learning?

Panelists:
Kira Orange Jones, CEO of TeachPlus
Michael Lovenheim, Professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University; Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Melissa “Mimi” Lyon, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany, SUNY

JUNE 6

How should teachers be taught?

Panelists: 
Peter Blair, Associate Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Dr. Heather Peske, President of the National Council on Teacher Quality
Daniel Weisberg, First Deputy Chancellor, New York City Public Schools