U.S. Department of Education and Advance Illinois to Discuss Transforming the Teaching Profession

Greg Darnieder, the U.S. Secretary of Education’s senior advisor on college access, and Dexter Chaney II, a U.S. Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellow, will lead a roundtable discussion with award-winning pre-K-12 teachers in Chicago on March 19. The session will offer opportunities for teachers who serve on Advance Illinois’s Educator Advisory Council to share their ideas, experience, feedback and insight on how to transform the teaching profession to support student learning.

Prior to his federal appointment, Darnieder, a former middle school teacher, established Chicago Public Schools’ department of postsecondary education and student development. Chaney, most recently a 3rd grade teacher of an all-boys classroom at Ryerson Elementary School in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, is now the school’s assistant principal. In his role as a Teaching Ambassador Fellow, Chaney helps educators, parents, students and other community members understand federal policy while representing local needs and interests to policy officials in Washington, D.C.

Advance Illinois is an independent organization that supports preparing students to graduate from high school ready for college and career, and its Educator Advisory Council has focused on teachers’ role. More information is http://www.advanceillinois.org/transforming-teacher-work-pages-174.php.