Betsy Rogers is no ordinary teacher. After being named National Teacher of the Year in 2003, she switched to Brighton School –- one of Alabama’s poorest schools, with the longest run on the county's school-improvement list. Most Brighton teachers have fewer than five years of experience, and at the end of the 2004-05 school year, the school had failed to meet the state's testing goals for seven years. Eighty-two percent of last year's fourth-graders couldn't read. Could a teacher -- even one chosen as Teacher of the Year -- turn it around? Indeed: thanks to Rogers' focus on teacher quality, this year, 73 percent of that same group are reading proficiently.
