Teacher Centers have become the heart of many successful efforts to rejuvenate low-performing schools. Collectively, they make up a union-run professional development program that dwarfs many universities in size and scope. This article ran in the February edition of AFT's American Teacher.

The teacher center at PS 165 in upper Manhattan is a crowded but welcoming place. In addition to the 15 computers-somehow strategically arranged so they can all be used at the same time-the telephone, the copying machine, the TV and VCR, the laminator, the coffee machine and other equipment, there are racks of books, papers, videos and all the other resources that can make life in the classroom easier for teachers and paraprofessionals.

Similar rooms can be found in some 120 schools and other sites throughout New York City, with new centers opening regularly. Individually, they have become the heart of many successful efforts to rejuvenate a low-performing school; collectively, they make up a union-run professional development program that dwarfs many universities in size and scope. The UFT/New York City Teacher Centers Consortium, as it's known, has been around for 17 years. Part of a network of centers supported by the New York State Education Department, the New York City consortium is a partnership of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and the New York City public schools as well as the state education department. But the UFT and its 140-strong teacher center staff are clearly the guiding force.

"What makes us unique," says consortium director Aminda Gentile, "is the fact that this is peer to peer. Teachers open their classroom doors to us to come in and work with them to refine their skills." The result is what she describes as "job-embedded professional development." The ultimate aim of every teacher-center activity, whether it's a citywide conference on arts in education, a workshop on instructional technology or help for a new teacher setting up her classroom on the first day, is to build teachers' knowledge and capacity. "Teachers have to know that opportunities for professional growth rest within them," Gentile adds. "We're trying to build capacity so we don't have to be there all the time. They become schools of continuous learners."

The center at PS 165 exemplifies that philosophy. "I don't want to be seen as the expert on everything, because I'm not," says Diana Rosado, who runs the school's center and refers to herself as the "facilitator." Last year, for example, the center created a study group on authors to explore reading and literacy strategies. What started with eight teachers eventually reached about three-quarters of the school's staff, Rosado proudly explains, as teachers discussed what they learned and shared their ideas with colleagues. This year, more study groups-most of which include parents and paraprofessionals as well as teachers-have been organized. Rosado provides some training on running meetings, but other experienced teachers facilitate the groups. Likewise with a popular desktop publishing class the center offers, there are no standard assignments. Instead, whatever the teachers produce has to be useful in their own class and something they can share with others.

The PS 165 center also serves as something of a parent center, with computer classes and other offerings. Rosado credits the strong parent involvement component with helping the school raise its reading scores enough recently to get off the list of New York City schools under review for low academic performance.

While the New York City consortium is an impressive example of how a union can meet the professional needs of its members, it's just one of many places where AFT affiliates, both on their own and in partnership with the local school district, have set up teacher centers or academies. Among the other teacher centers outside New York state are the Dade Academy for the Teaching Arts, the Chicago QuEST Center, Cincinnati's Mayerson Academy, and centers in places as diverse as New Orleans and Lake County, Fla.