Dive Brief:
- The Teach to Lead initiative, a project of the U.S. Department of Education and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, has focused on district-level plans to help teachers gain leadership skills, yet the program's progress has been slow and scattershot.
- States with different needs have focused on different issues in relation to teacher leadership, with different interpretations, and Education Week reports that Connecticut, for example, had a clear process, while an Arizona delegation was "mired in political concerns."
- Shortages of time on the part of teachers and funding in school systems have made many teacher development plans stall.
Dive Insight:
Developing leadership skills for teachers is important. A study conducted by the RAND Corporation in 2015 found that teacher leadership coaching and mentoring boosted students' test scores in some content areas, and the benefits don't end there. An innovative fellowship program created by the New Orleans-based nonprofit Leading Educators features intensive training programs for experienced teachers, with recorded boosts in performance.
It's also important for teachers of color, especially black men, to lead as well as teach. Nationwide, black male teachers are disproportionately underrepresented in classrooms, making up just 2% of public school teachers. Having black teachers lead classes is crucial, since students of color need to be able to identify with role models. In 2014, the National Education Association reported that just 18% of public school teachers in the United States are nonwhite.
Programs like Building Lives Acquiring Cultural Knowledge (BLACK) in Oakland, CA, and the Office of Black Male Student Achievement in Minneapolis can help close the racial achievement gap. In the latter city, black students account for 40% of district enrollment but make up 74% of disciplinary incidents and 78% of out-of-school suspensions.