The Center on Education Policy has posted a summary of two closed-door meetings it held this past fall on the distribution of highly qualified teachers.  I accompanied AFT Executive Vice President Toni Cortese to these meetings.  Much as I would like to say that the AFT, the Center on Reinventing Public Education, Ed Trust and the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights all held hands and sang Kumbaya (this is my new favorite thing to say), I can assure that did not happen. 

The fact remains that for some education groups, the focus should be on improving the professional working conditions at hard-to-staff schools, while other groups believe the emphasis should be on getting the "best" teachers into hard-to-staff schools through incentives or other means (and perhaps against their will--although no one said that directly).  I won't say "and never the two shall meet," but some big unresolved issues remain to be hashed out, and they will be during NCLB reauthorization.  (I'm guessing it won't be pretty.)

To see where the AFT stands on this issue, read the short memo we submitted to CEP for the meeting. And if you don't want to read the whole memo, here is the important part:

Although our research shows that transfer provisions do not cause distribution problems, the AFT is still committed to determining:(1) the magnitude of the teacher distribution problem in urban districts; (2) its root cause(s); and (3) workable remedies. And, in those districts where teacher distribution is a problem, the AFT is committed to working with our local affiliates to make the necessary changes to rectify the situation.

Update: See the ECS State Notes on Equitable Teacher Distribution/Working Conditions.