Dallas ISD’s new system to evaluate teachers has been built through gathering input from the ones who will be evaluated: teachers themselves. “Each level – elementary, middle school and high school – was asked for their input,” said veteran instructor Terri Calvert. Calvert is talking about the Teacher Excellence Initiative, or TEI, which took effect this school year. “Most teachers were concerned about the pay,” Calvert said. “Where they were going to fit along the pay scale, so knowing that they wouldn’t go lower than their current pay scale was comforting to most.” The idea is to identify effective teachers…

Editor’s note: During the Thanksgiving holiday, The Hub will take a look back at some of the best and most popular stories from our first semester. This story was originally published on Sept.19, 2014. Recently honored by Teach For America’s with the national Sue Lehmann Excellence in Teaching, Shirley Bolden feels teaching was what she was meant to do all along. Shirley teaches sixth-grade reading and writing at Benjamin Franklin Middle School. Hailing from Detroit, Shirley graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in journalism. She found her way into teaching through the Teach For America program. Of Shirley’s three sixth-grade classes, two…