NCTAF wants experienced community members to be part of cross-generational learning teams that help students meet the challenges of the 21st century.

The National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) is calling for the creation of cross-generational learning teams consisting of novice and veteran educators, interns, online educators and digital media specialists, community members and industry veterans with specific subject expertise to replace solo teachers in the nation’s classrooms. A new report, “Learning Teams: Creating What’s Next,” touts the model as a tonic for teacher turnover, student performance and school success.

What’s more, says Tom Carroll, president of NCTAF, the learning teams model could create millions of encore career opportunities for individuals eager to pursue meaningful work in education.

Read NCTAF’s call to action, “Learning Teams: Creating What’s Next,” which is aimed at boomers interested in preparing today’s students for the challenges of the 21st century.

Big changes in the field would need to occur first. “We think our effort to go to scale with encore careers in education is stymied by the current stand-alone teaching model that requires every educator in the classroom to be certified,” he said. “We want to deliver education with teams of certified teachers and adjunct members who have knowledge and experience in the areas of learning that the teachers and students are working on.”

Carroll announced the initiative at the Encore Careers Summit last December. NCTAF will host leadership retreats around the U.S. during the coming year to lay the groundwork for the learning team concept. A new Web site, LearningTeams.org, will track the progress of the initiative.

The report calls the new federal stimulus funding “a once-in-a-century opportunity to re-imagine American education.”

NCTAF believes the concept will appeal to veteran teachers, who are leaving the field at an alarming rate. According to NCTAF, the U.S. will lose a third of its veteran teachers during the next four years and more than half in less than a decade.

At the other end of the spectrum, beginning teachers are being driven away by antiquated preparation practices, outdated staffing policies and inadequate career rewards. Teacher turnover forces schools and districts to invest vast quantities of time and money in hiring and replacing staff, particularly in high-poverty schools where attrition is greatest.

The report says the team approach could motivate teachers of all ages to stay and also create an array of flexible work options, including short-term, part-time and adjunct positions, that allow boomers to pursue other personal and professional interests.

A “21st century teaching team” model has been proposed in Maryland, where NASA scientists would work on teams with ninth-grade earth science teachers. “NASA has a wealth of resources – videos, data, scientists with years of experiences – that can contribute to student and teacher learning,” said Carroll.

There’s plenty of interest in encore careers in education. The 2008 MetLife Foundation/Civic Ventures Encore Career Survey found that half of the nation’s 78 million boomers want jobs now or in the future to help improve the quality of life in their communities. But, Carroll said, “The certified teacher path is more arduous than probably most people in an encore career want to pursue.”

In a recent survey, NCTAF found that 70 percent of teachers nearing retirement would be interested in staying if they were able to work in new education roles in “phased or flexible retirement.” Three-quarters of the teachers surveyed reacted favorably to the idea of cross-generational learning teams. The NCTAF survey discovered that two-thirds of the teachers surveyed view “retirement as a time to begin a new chapter in life that is more flexible” as opposed to “rest from work” or “time to begin new challenges.”