More often than not in recent years, schools have had to go it alone in trying to meet the needs of our most underserved students. So it's encouraging to see a renewed emphasis on context, and on the kinds of solutions we've seen work in some of our neediest communities

Each year of my first five years in the classroom had super high points and equally impressive low points. Every teacher has a story to tell about why they are in education and why they have persevered.

It seems like we as a nation put teachers through a cycle of professional development and improvement so that they can become excellent teachers. And we hope this works. At the same time, the responsibility is on all of us (leaders, teachers, and even our students) to help make this process works.

Recruitment is important, but the leaky bucket is not a challenge we can just recruit ourselves out of. We can attempt to continuously replace these teachers, or we can do what it takes to stem the flow.