This report analyzes professional learning policies and practices in four school systems where students consistently score well on the Programme for International Student Assessment: Shanghai,... Read more »
Defining Teacher-Leader Roles
The roles of teacher leaders working to enable their peers to improve and ultimately increase their students’ achievement vary widely. The resources here provide some general and detailed descriptions and definitions of teacher leader roles, and case studies on some of these roles.
Defining Teacher-Leader Roles and Responsibilities
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This report from the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY) and the Center for Educator Effectiveness at Pearson reviews lessons from other countries and professions and gives... Read more »
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Minxuan Zhang played a key role in developing Shanghai's education system; in this report, he shares his insights on teacher development, a key element of the system, which he illustrates in terms... Read more »
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This paper, by Rachel Curtis of Human Capital Strategies for Urban Schools, gives examples of school systems that have created unique teacher career pathways as part of a larger vision to transform... Read more »
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This report by the National Network of State Teachers of the Year (NNSTOY) includes insights from effective teachers on how teacher leadership affects their practice.
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This report by the Aspen Institute argues for a shift in school culture, making a case for the redistribution of leadership tasks to teachers.
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This two-page brief from ASCD offers several charts about teacher leadership in the United States, including a map of states that have teacher-leader certification endorsements in place or planned... Read more »
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This qualitative study examined a professional development school partnership between a local state university and a K–5 inner-city school in the southeastern U.S. over a year to discover how the... Read more »
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The U.S. Department of Education created this initiative to spur teacher leadership. The website includes resources and examples of teacher leadership.
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This report seeks to identify the components of a sustainable, effective teacher career continuum by studying eight varied school districts—high-poverty, low-poverty, urban, suburban, and rural—... Read more »
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The Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortium, which includes union representatives, teachers, administrators, higher education leaders, and policy organizations, created this set of model standards... Read more »
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Teacher Leadership as a Key to Education Innovation: Action Steps and Promising Strategies for State, District, and University Officials
This Policy-to-Practice Brief is intended to help regional centers and state policymakers as they consider expanded career paths for teachers as a vehicle for promoting teacher leadership and... Read more » -
Teacher Leadership Skills Framework: School and District Capacity Tool to Support Teacher Leadership
Part of the toolkit offered by the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession (CSTP) to support the development of teacher-leaders, this tool is designed to help school and district leaders... Read more »
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The Center for American Progress investigates the role of teacher leaders in implementing the Common Core State Standards in six districts and makes recommendations for districts implementing the... Read more »
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This resource from Public Impact provides an overview of standard teacher leader roles as well as a checklist for the characteristics of a teacher leader job.
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This journal article from Educational Leadership provides brief descriptions of several common teacher leadership roles, including a short vignette describing each role.
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This set of teacherleadership competencies developed by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the National Education Association, and the Center for Teaching Quality is designed... Read more »
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These tools from Public Impact are intended to help principals build leadership skills of teacher leaders.
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Based on the premise that distributing responsibility for developing teachers across a group of talented teachers yields improvements in teaching and learning, this report identifies successful “... Read more »
General Resources
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This report by the Aspen Institute argues for a shift in school culture, making a case for the redistribution of leadership tasks to teachers.
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This report seeks to identify the components of a sustainable, effective teacher career continuum by studying eight varied school districts—high-poverty, low-poverty, urban, suburban, and rural—... Read more »
Career Pathways & Tiered Certification
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This paper, by Rachel Curtis of Human Capital Strategies for Urban Schools, gives examples of school systems that have created unique teacher career pathways as part of a larger vision to transform... Read more »
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Based on the premise that distributing responsibility for developing teachers across a group of talented teachers yields improvements in teaching and learning, this report identifies successful “... Read more »
Emerging Options for New Teacher Leader Roles
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As part of its Opportunity Culture initiative, Public Impact has developed detailed descriptions of several school models that enable excellent teachers to reach more students for more pay, within... Read more »
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Teach Plus, an advocacy organization dedicated to keeping high-performing teachers in the classroom, has a program that recruits, develops, and supports highly effective, experienced teachers to... Read more »
Staffing Innovations
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These tools from Public Impact are intended to help principals build leadership skills of teacher leaders.
Training Teacher-Leaders
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This report examines promising early results from the Emerging Leaders selective teacher leadership program run by New Leaders; it argues that appropriate preparation strategies and clear... Read more »
Detailed Role Descriptions
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This general Web resource on finding a career in education provides information about curriculum specialist positions, including typical job requirements and responsibilities.
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This sample job description from Miami-Dade County Public Schools includes job responsibilities and hiring criteria for grade-level chairs, department chairs, and team leaders.
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This job description from the District of Columbia Public Schools explains what is expected of an instructional coach.
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This resource from KIPP provides a detailed explanation of how classroom teachers’ job responsibilities change as they progress to grade-level chair positions within the KIPP charter school... Read more »
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The District of Columbia Public Schools Leadership Initiative for Teachers (LIFT) is a five-stage career ladder that provides high-performing teachers with opportunities for advancement within the... Read more »
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This Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools webpage for job candidates lists the required qualifications for professional development facilitators.
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This sample job description from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction includes typical job responsibilities and hiring criteria for curriculum specialist positions.
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Public Impact describes the responsibilities of a multi-classroom leader in an Opportunity Culture, and how teachers in this role lead teaching teams to improve student learning.
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This final report by an Iowa Department of Education task force outlines a new teacher compensation system that includes new positions within an overall teacher career ladder: apprentice, career,... Read more »
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This resource from the New York City Department of Education describes how lead teachers in New York City take on increased job responsibilities for more pay.
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This resource produced by the Boston Plan for Excellence provides sample job descriptions for hiring grade-level chairs for Boston schools.
Case Studies
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This overview from the Delaware Department of Education describes the state’s new teacher leader program, which is set to begin in Delaware schools during the 2016–17 school year.
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This report offers an international perspective on teacher leadership, focusing on reforms within England’s school system.
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Leading Educators has partnered with schools to help develop more than 900 teacher leaders since 2008.
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This brief program description from the Houston Independent School District (HISD) profiles how its career pathways program encourages top teachers to stay in the classroom and enhance student... Read more »
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This case study from the Harvard Business School considers the teacher contract implemented in Baltimore in 2012 under Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Andres Alonso.
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This article from Teachers Teaching Teachers profiles a data coach who learned through her experience in the classroom how to understand student data.
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Recent reforms in England’s school system have led to the distribution in state schools of leadership responsibilities across administrators and teachers.
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This report evaluates the potential of a professional development model in which excellent teachers gave formal presentations traditionally delivered by non-district experts to develop other... Read more »
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In this case study, Public Impact profiles a multi-classroom leader in his first year working with math and science teachers in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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The U.S. Department of Education created this initiative to spur teacher leadership. The website includes resources and examples of teacher leadership.
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This report examines promising early results from the Emerging Leaders selective teacher leadership program run by New Leaders; it argues that appropriate preparation strategies and clear... Read more »
Retention
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This paper, by Rachel Curtis of Human Capital Strategies for Urban Schools, gives examples of school systems that have created unique teacher career pathways as part of a larger vision to transform... Read more »
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This report by the Aspen Institute argues for a shift in school culture, making a case for the redistribution of leadership tasks to teachers.
