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Recommendation Two:
Create opportunities, both formal and informal, for teachers to influence design, create, and implement school and district policies and procedures.
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Role Group Strategies
District Office
Emphasize that shared leadership and, empowering teachers are core district values. Provide resources for schools and principals that will support shared leadership and teacher empowerment.
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Interactive Case Study: System Wide Change
The George Lucas Educational Foundation. (2003).
http://glef.org/systemreform/home.html
This site provides an in-depth look at the successful school reform efforts of Union City Public Schools in New Jersey. The contents are organized around five key factors in reform: leadership, curriculum/assessment, professional development, technology, and community. Under leadership, the authors explain how the district assessed and addressed their unique needs, in addition to describing the new curricula written by a teacher and the importance of empowering teachers and district administrators.
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Principals who Know How to Share Leadership
Alabama Best Practices Center. (2004, Spring).
http://www.bestpracticescenter.org/pdfs/wte4-1.pdf
The Spring 2004 issue of "Working Toward Excellence" profiles several principals who've discovered (some late in their careers) the power of teacher leadership to revitalize teaching and learning. The issue also describes the Alabama Reading Initiative's principal coaching program, which is helping dozens of principals gain the confidence, skills and knowledge they need to lead reforms in literacy instruction.
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Leading Your School Through a School Improvement Process: Organizing a School Improvement Team
School Improvement in Maryland
http://www.mdk12.org/process/leading/sit.html
The development of school improvement teams allows leadership within a school to be shared. This website provides score sheets to evaluate the effectiveness of their school improvement teams in the following five areas: team building, strategic planning and follow through, leadership, data utilization and analysis, and managing change and measuring progress.
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Redefining the Teacher as Leader
Usdan, M., McCloud, B., and Podmostko, M. (2001). Institute for Educational Leadership.
http://www.iel.org/programs/21st/reports/teachlearn.pdf
This report examines the potential power in enabling and encouraging teacher leadership. It discusses roadblocks to teacher leadership, shares promising practices from districts around the country, and provides a list of “Suggested Questions” that communities can use to start discussions related to teacher leadership within their districts.
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Research-Based Strategies to Achieve High Standards: A Guidebook on School-Wide Improvement
WestEd
http://www.wested.org/csrd/guidebook/toc.htm
With this resource, WestEd aims to provide a comprehensive guide to school improvement. It describes the different stages of the school improvement process, listing detailed instructions and guiding questions throughout. The authors also include a collection of "tools and activities," which range from a self-assessment guide to a data sources checklist, and profiles of successful schools.
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Coaching Moves Beyond the Gym: Successful Site-Based Coaching Offers Lessons
Galm, R., and Penny, G.S. (2004, Spring). Journal of Staff Development, 25(2).
http://www.nsdc.org/library/publications/jsd/galm252.cfm
This article from the Journal of Staff Development outlines the growing practice of using teacher-leaders within a building to provide on-going professional development and support to teachers and highlights the benefits of coaching on student achievement. A description of five keys to developing quality coaching programs provides communities with a starting point for establishing their own site-based professional development programs.
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‘Making Our Own Road:’ The Emergence of School-Based Staff Developers in America’s Public Schools
Richard, A. (2003, May). The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
http://www.emcf.org/pdf/student_ourownroad.pdf
School-based staff developers are becoming increasingly common in America’s public schools. These professionals, often former teachers looking for an opportunity to advance within teaching, are charged with serving as instructional leaders within their buildings. This guide from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation outlines the role of school-based staff developers. It provides an overview of the need for such positions, a description of the kinds of people filling school-based staff development jobs, several suggestions about the types of roles that school-based staff developers can fill within a school, and an examination of the benefits of school-based staff development programs.
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Principals’ Readiness for Reform: A Comprehensive Approach
Schiff, T. (2002, February 29). Milken Family Foundation
http://www.mff.org/newsroom/news.taf?page=312
While much recent discussion has focused on the importance of principals serving as instructional leaders, a survey conducted in the fall of 2000 by the Milken Family Foundation and the National Association of Secondary School Principals revealed that principals spend less than 30% of their work week addressing the curriculum or learning environment of their schools. The majority of their time was spent on issues related to discipline, community relations and school management. The Milken Family Foundation sees this as an opportunity to create leadership positions for teachers interested in remaining in the classroom, but hoping for more responsibility. This article, originally printed in the January, 2002 issue of Principal Leadership, discusses how principals can benefit by sharing responsibilities with teacher-leaders through the Teacher Advancement Program.
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To Teach, To Lead, To Transform
Threshold (Summer 2005) Cable in the Classroom
http://tinyurl.com/aohc3
This article considers the role of the teacher leader in the future of school reform. The authors describe the type of roles teacher leaders take on within a school, discuss the necessity of including teacher leadership in teacher preparation programs, and give a variety of answers to the question “What makes a teacher leader?”
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