The title is catchy and positive: "Smart, Skilled, and Striving: Transforming and Elevating the Teaching Profession." It sounds like a teacher-friendly approach to improving the perceptions and experiences of teachers working in classrooms. However, this report published by the Center for American Progress uses popular rhetoric and sound bites to advance a policy agenda that in many ways could harm the teaching profession. The authors present 10 recommendations to "raise the quality" of how teachers are recruited, trained and evaluated in order to "elevate" the profession. Although the report purports to advance a "progressive vision and policy agenda" a deeper analysis indicates that the recommendations are more aligned with conservative, individualistic, accountability-based approaches to educational reform. [For "Smart, Skilled, and Striving: Transforming and Elevating the Teaching Profession," see ED583595.]