For years now, educators have looked to international tests as a yardstick to measure how well students from the United States are learning compared with their peers. The answer has been: not so well. The United States has been falling further behind other nations and has struggled with a large achievement gap. Federal policy under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the U.S. Department of Education's "flexibility" waivers has sought to address this problem by beefing up testing policies--requiring more tests and upping the consequences for poor results, including denying diplomas to students, firing teachers, and closing schools. Unfortunately, this strategy has not worked. This article discusses ideas on how to progress in closing the teaching gap. Major headway in raising student performance and closing the achievement gap cannot be made until there is progress in closing the teaching gap. That means supporting children equitably outside as well as inside the classroom, creating a profession that is rewarding and well-supported, and designing schools that offer the conditions for both the student and the teacher learning that will move American education forward.