Speakers
Kate Walsh
President, National Council on Teacher Quality
Kate Walsh has served as the president of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) since 2002. Before coming to NCTQ, she worked for the Abell Foundation in Baltimore, the Baltimore City Public Schools, and the Core Knowledge Foundation. Her work has tackled a broad spectrum of educational issues, with a primary focus on the needs of children who are disadvantaged by poverty and race. Ms. Walsh started and ran a boarding school in Kenya to educate at-risk boys from Baltimore and also developed one of the nation’s premier programs in mathematics and science for middle and secondary public school students, a program that has yielded numerous Intel Talent Search winners. She also started the first alternative certification program for teachers in Maryland, a project which led to her strong interest in teacher quality. Ms. Walsh has since authored many papers on teacher quality, with a particular interest in the effects of the policies and practices of institutions—including states, unions, districts, and teacher preparation programs—on the teaching profession. She also serves on the Maryland State Board of Education.
