The U.S. Department of Education (USED) has been working with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to convene Teach to Lead, a new initiative aimed at expanding opportunities for teacher leadership to advance student learning.

You’re invited you to participate in the discussion by joining Commit to Lead, a new online community that makes it easy for educators across the country to share ideas for teacher leadership and collaborate to bring them to fruition. Commit to Lead allows members to provide feedback and vote on one another’s ideas — so that the most promising and talked-about ideas rise to the top.

Here’s how it works: An “idea” is just that — a brief description (fewer than 1,500 characters, or about 300 words) of what you hope to do to advance teacher leadership in your school, district or state to address a pressing problem in education. Great ideas will go beyond the statement of a goal or aspiration to articulate the problem or need you hope to address and how you plan to address it.

You will also be prompted to fill out a quick form to provide a sense of where your idea fits under the large umbrella of teacher leadership and how the community can help. You can also tag your idea with keywords, such as “career ladder” or “middle school,” so that others with similar interests can easily find it.

Once your idea has been approved and appears on the website, you can promote your idea on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the social media icons next to your post. You’ll be notified of comments to your idea by email, so that you can respond. Let the conversation begin!