Conclusion

In this report, Advance Illinois and our Educator Advisory Council promote a vision of a school culture where teaching is—in the words of Linda Smerge, 2009 Illinois Teacher of the Year—a "team sport." To achieve this vision, we suggest that Illinois make the most of recent reforms, spearhead change through innovation zones, and scale up proven solutions.

Attracting and building the capacity of truly great teachers and teacher leaders will require the intense focus on goal setting and staff development that is the hallmark of great organizations. The new school does this through well-developed structures and systems of scheduling, effective collaboration, accountability, expectations for continuous professional learning and growth, and progressive career opportunities.

In Illinois, work has begun to improve these systems. But the transformation of teaching from a solitary profession to one that is based on mutual support and accountability will be difficult. It will require administrators, unions, policymakers, and teachers themselves to alter the perception of their work and to work together to transform the systems within which that work takes place.

Only a true professional workforce—with a team at its center—will succeed. Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." This is as true of education today as it was of the new and fragile union then.