The American Federation of
Teachers' Quality Educational
Standards in Teaching (QuEST)
conference is taking place July 13-15
at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel
in Washington, D.C.

QuEST is the AFT's signature professional development conference that provides state-of-the-art training and explores forward-looking education initiatives. While QuEST's 2,000 participants are primarily AFT members, the conference also is attended by state and district administrators, school board members, and representatives from the higher education, business and social service communities.

Among the conference highlights will be U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan taking questions from the audience, a speech by U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, a keynote address by AFT President Randi Weingarten, a session on teacher quality with Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University, events with unionized charter school teachers and a panel on community schools.

This year's theme is "Investing in Our Future." As in past years, QuEST 2009 includes high-quality workshops featuring the latest research and best practices on a range of education topics, such as common academic standards, early childhood education, English language learners, classroom management and collaborating with parents and the community. New this year are QuEST Academies. These highly interactive sessions are designed to help local teams (e.g., union leaders, management and community partners) collaborate on addressing tough issues.