At its heart are the National Education Association's "Status of the American Public School Teacher" surveys, which are conducted every five years and offer unprecedented insights into the professional lives and experiences of teachers nationwide. This volume analyzes and summarizes the survey's findings, while also offering commentaries on the findings from leading figures in the worlds of education, business, politics, and research. A landmark work, "The American Public School Teacher" provides an indispensable vantage point from which to understand this crucially important profession, its recent history, and its potential future contributions to public education in the United States. This book contains the following papers: (1) Introduction; (2) A Statistical Portrait of the American Public School Teacher, 1955 to 2010; (3) Greater Coherence and Consistent Standards for the Teaching Profession (Joseph A. Aguerrebere); A Voice from the Classroom (Richard Schaen); (4) Rocket Fuel: Teacher Support for Energized Classrooms (Dan Brown); A Voice from the Classroom (John J. Fulco); (5) Time, Teaching, and Technology (Michael Dell); A Voice from the Classroom (Patricia O'Connor); (6) A Vision of the New Teacher in the Twenty-First Century (Arne Duncan); A Voice from the Classroom (Nancy K. Hahn); (7) Making a Place for Technology in Our Schools (Jason Gipson-Nahman); A Voice from the Classroom (Nancy Lyles Durham); (8) Developing Professional Expertise: Rethinking the MA Degree for Teachers (Pam Grossman and Michelle Brown); A Voice from the Classroom (Erin Reed); (9) Paying Teachers Appropriately (Eric A. Hanushek); A Voice from the Classroom (Annmarie Noonan); (10) A Governor's Vision: Reforming Teacher Salaries and Standards (James B. Hunt Jr.); A Voice from the Classroom (B. Elizabeth Beck); (11) The Changing Face of the Teaching Force (Richard M. Ingersoll and Lisa Merrill); A Voice from the Classroom (Paige Foreman); (12) Two Generations of Teachers Meet in the Schools (Susan Moore Johnson); A Voice from the Classroom (Pedro Jimenez III); (13) What Are Teachers in It For? Money, Motivation, and the Higher Calling (Brad Jupp); A Voice from the Classroom (Jody Smothers-Marcello); (14) Learning to Expect More (Jay Mathews); A Voice from the Classroom (Daniel A. Domenech); (15) Brown v. The African American Teacher: The Lingering Effects of Inequality (Renee Moore); A Voice from the Classroom (Kelli S. Welborn); (16) A Profession? (Andrew J. Rotherham); A Voice from the Classroom (Elizabeth M. DellaBadia); (17) The Four Cs: New Norms in an Age of Technology (Barbara Stoflet); A Voice from the Classroom (Gary Metras); (18) Laying the Groundwork for Teacher Success (Dennis Van Roekel); A Voice from the Classroom (Lynda Hacker Araoz); (19) Teachers and Their Unions: Making Change Work (Randi Weingarten): A Voice from the Classroom (Patricia Rendon); and (20) The American Public School Teacher: Past, Present, and Future. An index is included. [Foreword by Judith Warren Little.]