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2013/06/17

A Powerful Case Study on Teacher Leadership

How does developing teacher-leaders yield an “opportunity culture” and greater student success? Check out Public Impact’s case study on our Fellow, Anna Lavely, for answers: Empowering Teacher-Leaders to Extend Reach by Leading Others.
 “I set my expectations so high, but I always think there’s more that can be done,” Lavely says. “I can sometimes be a very black- and-white teacher. If I think something’s really important, teachers will say 80 percent is good. My goal? 100 percent. If you expect a lot, you get a lot."
And that led to what she calls her greatest success: a set of class – rooms proficient in both math and reading – including  students in special education and English language learners.
Lavely could not have achieved this  kind of result by teaching all  the students herself all the time. Her secret was motivating her team members and helping  them meet this high bar. The  key is encouraging them, she says, and building a “we” culture. “If you  walked into a team  meeting, here’s what you’d  see: It’s in my class - room, not a conference room. We sit in a circle or semicircle, to build that collaborative feel.

 Click here to read more.

The case study is part of Public Impact's Opportunity Culture project. Bryan Hassel and Emily Ayscue Hassel explained further in their article, "How One Leading Educators Fellow Extends Her Reach" on EducationNext: 
How can schools redesign jobs and use technology to reach more students with excellent teachers? And how can they offer teachers more pay, within budget? Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture project aims to answer both questions. As districts and schools around the country think about extending the reach of excellent teachers, they want real-life examples to show them how to tackle each of these challenges.

 In a new case study, we profile Anna Lavely of Kansas, who is participating in a two-year fellowship aimed at developing the leadership of already-excellent teachers. Her story provides one example of how schools can reach more students with great teachers—and of how many programs to increase teachers’ impact still fall short on paying teachers their due, sustainably.
To read the full article, click here.       
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2013/05/16

New Orleans Teacher-Leaders Go National: The ECET2 Conference


Earlier this spring, Leading Educators took four Fellows to the Elevating and Celebrating Effective Teaching and Teachers (ECET2) Conference to share their experiences of teacher-leadership development with other educators from around the country. 

Our two Fellows from New Orleans were struck by the powerful work going on all over the US. In their own words: 

"The most significant thing that I learned was that we are not alone! The educational challenges are real and there are like-minded people across this nation who are striving for the best for our children.  This conference also made me realize how much we do not collaborate in our city or our state.  There is so much competition that if it were not for LE, we would  all  be on our own little charter islands.  We must collaborate because two heads are so much better than one and this battle cannot be won alone.

As I move into a new school and new role it will be vital for me to create new relationships and also hold onto old ones, connections between schools must be made, even if a true district does not exist. We can build great ideas together and share triumphs in order to optimize time and increase student achievement. We are ONE!"
—Bridget Burns, a Director of Curriculum and Instruction in Cohort 2011

New Orleans Fellow Danielle Bienville reads to her first grade class.
New Orleans Fellow Danielle Bienville reads to her first grade class.
 "I learned that many teachers and schools around the country are working towards perfecting planning and implementations around the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). I had conversations around the many tools schools are using (i.e. the Literacy Design Collaborative) in order to get students to dig in deep with the texts and content they are studying. Additionally, the sheer collaboration and willingness to share resources, ideas, and tools was inspiring. Teachers around the country who are doing it well want to share with those who are further behind in the spirit of student achievement.

I will bring from the conference a deeper awareness of the CCSS and will be able to explain the reasoning for these standards. I feel I will also be able to advocate for training and resources for teachers around these instructional shifts because I have talked to and witnessed teachers implementing them successfully, specifically in the upper grades.

It was humbling to be surrounded by teachers who have been teaching 15, 20, and even 30 years, a landscape that is increasingly disappearing in New Orleans. These teachers are still perfecting their craft in front of students on a daily basis while they are also able to serve as teacher-leaders. They mentor by example to interns, student teachers, and other veteran teachers. They are tapped to lead professional developments and attend conferences such as ECET2. The experience reaffirmed that I don't need to step out of the classroom in order to lead."
—Danielle Bienville, a Master Teacher of First Grade in Cohort 2011

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2013/04/18

Leading Educators is Hiring!


Leading Educators Greater Kansas City Fellows.
Interested in joining a dynamic non-profit on the forefront of education? Check out the great job opportunities we have below!

As Leading Educators expands across the U.S., we are hiring for several positions in our both New Orleans and Washington, D.C. offices. Please look at the available positions below and share them with any potential candidates. To officially apply, candidates should complete the online application form.

Please stay tuned to our Careers page, which will be updated in the coming weeks with full descriptions of all the positions below. __________________________________________________________________________________

New Orleans  

NATIONAL TEAM ROLES

Director of Knowledge Management
Oversees the sharing of Leading Educators program content internally and externally and manages the sharing platforms team.  
Director of Emerging Services*
Manages the research and identification of client and stakeholder partnerships in support of expanding our programming.
Director of Coaching*
Develops coaching tools; assists with coach recruitment, selection, and development nationally; and contributes to the continuous evaluation and improvement of the coaching model.
Senior Manager of Emerging Services*
Oversees proposal development for Leading Educators professional development products aimed at increasing the skills of teachers, teacher-leaders, and school-leaders.
Director of New Programming
Leads the development, design, and implementation of new programming models. Customizes existing Leading Educators content to meet the needs of district and charter partners.
Program Manager 
Leads implementation of Leading Educators' national programming, managing the delivery, logistics, and client relationship.  
National Program Coordinator
Maximizes the national program team's effectiveness by coordinating team work plan, program components, budgets, and timelines.
Office Administrative Assistant
Performs administrative tasks and supports day-to-day office functionality.
*These positions require candidates who are willing to travel 30% - 50% of the time; flexible location but New Orleans preferred.

NEW ORLEANS REGIONAL TEAM ROLES 

Leadership Coach Consultant (Part-Time: 2+ in Baton Rouge; 3+ in New Orleans)
Directly coaches participants in the Leading Educators Fellowship and oversees Fellow relationship building and continued program development. 
Program Experience Manager
Builds and sustains positive relationships with Fellows in New Orleans and Baton Rouge by managing communications, supporting program events, and assisting with recruitment.

Program Assistant
Supports the New Orleans regional program with communications and event logistics, provides administrative support, and assists the regional Executive Director with identification and development of funding opportunities.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Washington, D.C.  

Executive Director
Responsible for day-to-day leadership of a start-up region, ensuring programmatic offerings achieve their objectives. Manages the regional team, its deliverables, and its overall success.
Program DirectorManages regional coach consultants and leads the planning and execution of other programmatic components, in addition to coaching participants in the Leading Educators Fellowship.
Leadership Coach Consultant
(Part-Time; up to 8)
Directly coaches participants in the Leading Educators Fellowship and oversees Fellow relationship building and continued program development.
Program Experience Manager (2)
Builds and sustains positive relationships with Fellows in New Orleans and Baton Rouge by managing communications, supporting program events, and assisting with recruitment. 
Program Assistant
Supports the Washington, D.C. regional program with communications and event logistics, provides administrative support, and assists the regional Executive Director with identification and development of funding opportunities.

 Find updates at www.leadingeducators.org/careers.
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2013/04/10

Reflections on Trends in Teacher Leadership

Leading Educators Advisory Board Retreat, New Orleans, February 2013

by Andrea Berkeley, Leadership Development Direct at Teaching Leaders UK and Leading Educators Advisory Board Member

 

Andrea Berkeley
Although the observations that follow are based mainly on UK experience, similar trends appear to be emerging across global education systems: increased public accountability in tandem with greater autonomy for schools; an urgent imperative to close the achievement gap between affluent and poorer communities; national, public or state authority over schools being replaced by stakeholder communities or not-for-profit mission-driven organisations impatient with endemic failures of the status quo. In addition to global shifts in economic power, the nature of work itself is changing along with advances in technology.

The big question of the day seems to be whether our education systems are fit for purpose. Although successive government reforms in the UK have driven up standards overall in the last 10 years, the gap between the attainment of children from poor and affluent homes has remained roughly the same, in some areas it has widened, and there is a long tail of underachievement. 

The legacy of the Charter School movement in the US - KIPP in particular - echoes through the rapid emergence of new kinds of school organisation in the UK – federations clustered around ‘Teaching Schools’ which, partnered with a university, provide professional development from initial teacher training to leadership and management across groups of schools; independent yet state-funded chains of academies and the new ‘Free Schools’.

These systemic changes afford more opportunities for collaboration and the kind of distributed leadership essential for building a self-sustaining system, where schools learn from and support each other. This ideal is easier said than done: for some sceptics the definition of ‘collaboration’ would seem to be ‘the suppression of mutual loathing in pursuit of government funding’, when faced with the reality of forced collaboration or reluctant leadership.

A McKinsey report on education standards published in the UK two years ago emphasised the importance of school leadership, citing research demonstrating that the quality of leadership is second only to classroom teaching in its impact on student achievement. The same report also published data showing that in-school variation – between subject departments and between individual teachers – is as big a driver of the achievement gap as school-to-school variation.

Both the UK and the US have invested soundly in the development of school leadership in recent years, both as a strategic management tool and as a means of growing the leadership talent pipeline. But the focus has been mainly on senior leadership and not on those teachers who lead on the frontline of delivering improved standards.

The imperative to address the development needs of ‘first-line leaders’ – those middle ranking teachers who lead teams of teachers – was raised at an Education Summit held by Leading Educators US and Teaching Leaders UK in Washington DC in 2009. Little has been institutionalised in developed countries since then and the concept is almost virtually unknown in developing nations. Even in the UK and the US there is still a prevalence of ‘first among equals’ or ‘advocate’ culture rather than teacher-leaders who are accountable and who hold others to account.

The time for a collaborative, networked approach that includes support for individual teacher-leaders as well as advancing systemic change might just be right, as Generation Y, the ‘Me’ Generation is being replaced by the ‘C’ Generation, a psychographic group emerging on both sides of the Atlantic as highly connected, pluralistic, multi-cultural, media-savvy digital citizens with shared values and lifestyles.
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2013/04/02

Advisory Board Retreat: Creating Change


Our Advisory Board Retreat last month yielded many thought-provoking discussions for Leading Educators. The group considered how we should define ourselves as an organization and what specific goals we want to accomplish in the future. As a young but rapidly growing organization, we are excited by these challenging questions and privileged to have an Advisory Board to guide us through the crossroads. 

The retreat took place February 22-23, 2013 at Sci Academy in New Orleans East. In attendance were eight of the best and brightest minds in teacher-leadership today, from East and West Coasts, from de-centralized to large urban school districts, from charter organizations, to teacher unions, to public school systems. We are proud and appreciative of our diverse group of Advisory Board members. 

We were encouraged to learn that many of the topics discussed at the retreat were relevant to the Board members’ organizations. We found a universality among our goals and challenges, across the school districts represented at the meeting and even across the Atlantic, with one the Board member coming from our sister organization Teaching Leaders UK. We discussed on a broader scale how change happens: is change most accessible  on the fringes or, for teacher leadership to blossom, must it be addressed from the core of our systems?

We were reminded that systemic change—with whatever approach—is difficult to achieve. The Board encouraged us to identify our challenges specifically and then reach out to other institutions that are successfully handling similar situations. We can enrich our thinking by reaching out to multiple sectors—military, business, education, government, etc.—as their experience in developing middle leaders will likely be adaptable.

The group’s recommendations flowed with a sense of excitement about the potential of teacher-leadership in the U.S. Our advisory board is a valuable asset in our efforts to bring about student success through teacher leadership development. Future posts will consider more specific topics discussed at the retreat—please stay tuned!
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