In this article, Thomas R. Hoerr offers some insights into safe schools that attend not only to the physical safety of students and staff, but the emotional well-being of everyone. With safety, there are no guarantees, but school leaders can work hard to ensure that every student feels safe and comfortable at school, which means embracing all…

Professional development schools (PDSs) are a specific type of school-university partnership designed to support teacher preparation, professional development, inquiry and research, and student learning. Due to active teacher engagement in PDS work over the past three decades, teacher leader practice and development has emerged as a serendipitous…

Bringing together leadership educators from 11 programs in Kansas, the Leadership Studies Summit fostered new initiatives and strengthened collegial networks. The summit responded to local and national expressed needs for intensive dialogue focusing on collaboration and capacity building among leadership educators for advancing the common good.…

This article describes the first implementation of the Future Educators Learning Community, and particularly, the impact of three linked courses and instructor collaboration. With supporting literature and the context and background of this learning community as the foundation, our experiences are structured into three distinct categories:…

The author suggests that increasing diversity in the roles, demographics, and institutional homes of faculty is the most consequential factor bedeviling the leadership of the faculty enterprise and, therefore, any transformation of the academy. He believes that to overcome the pressures pulling the academy apart, presidents and provosts, governing…

Teachers are starting to rebel against passive, one-size-fits-all forms of professional development and form their own learning networks through online platforms, edcamps, and so on. But free-choice learning experiences don't foster a community of shared professional inquiry or learning in a school or district. Rodman describes how any school…

Learning leaders have important roles in facilitating and supporting the effective and innovative integration of technology in schools. Many leaders who are charged with the task of technology integration have not received professional development to support a leadership role. Many teachers who assume the role of technology leaders develop into…

This report explores the premise that there's nothing more powerful than great teachers skillfully using great instructional materials to motivate and engage students in their learning. Three real-world examples illustrate how schools and school systems are working to support teachers to skillfully use high-quality, standards-aligned curricula, by…

The effective teacher in the classroom is both the starting point and the engine of excellent and meaningful education. That is because excellent teachers are not only the single most important in-school factor in student learning, the best of them are the key factor in improving the instructional practices and strengthening the skills of their…

According to the author, for any change to occur in language arts, it must originate from a classroom need and have the support of "teacher leaders" who are able to carry it forward. Learning environments would cease to exist without a teacher leading the learning. The essence of the profession is leadership, yet many teachers do not see…

This article focuses on a development project led by the lead author in her primary school. Samantha's story provides insight related to the pedagogical focus of the project but importantly highlights the challenges and triumphs involved in the process of improving and changing practice in the school workplace. Two vital conditions of support for…

This action guide provides school leadership teams with a resource for integrating the social, emotional and academic needs of young people into the daily student experience, from the time a bus driver greets a student until the end of the day. It supports the school leader and her/his team in mapping out an approach for integrating the social,…

Teachers in high-poverty schools often feel stressed and fatigued. We might expect that if we ask these teachers to take on even more work by meeting regularly in collaborative improvement teams, they will respond with skepticism, even resentment. But in a study of 83 teachers in six outstanding high-poverty schools, these researchers found the…

This introduction to the second part of our Symposium on Teachers as Leaders examines the role of collaboration and writing as part of teacher leadership. The first part of the symposium described teacher leadership as a stance that values professionalism and the intellectual, political, and collaborative work of teaching. This introduction…

Teacher leaders can play an important role in school improvement efforts, but require district support to effectively lead their peers. Partnering with outside organizations is one way that districts can deepen their capacity to support and sustain teacher leadership. In the current landscape of rigorous standards implementation, teacher…