Lowell Milken, founder of the Milken Educator Awards and the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET), leads a panel discussion on teacher leadership. "The quality of an educational system cannot exceed the quality of its educators," he says. "When schools and districts formalize teacher leader roles, student achievement increases." All the panelists are Milken Educators who have partnered with NIET and implemented the organization's principles in practice, and two have since joined NIET's staff.