Transformational change means changing teachers' and principals' conceptions of schools and classrooms. This is cultural work that counteracts a 200-year-old cultural system of economic and social privilege. Educators must discover how to create transformational, culture-building leaders in schools. Schools should regard ethnicity, cultural…

Explores the benefits of teacher leadership as well as the barriers to and opportunities for making teacher leadership work in practice. Concludes that teacher leadership could have beneficial effects on school improvement, but that the right conditions need to be in place. (Contains 79 references.) (MLF)

Today's students need countless opportunities to turn information into knowledge that helps them understand themselves, others, and the world. Emergent teacher leadership will help students practice democracy. Principals must partner with teachers to create time for staff to converse, learn together, and convert schools to learning centers. (MLH)

A small-group process used for self-directed, continuous professional development tries to integrate three elements: creation of a safe, risk-free, listening ambience; ongoing examination of research on brain/mind learning principles; and implementation and integration of new strategies and practices into a coherent model. (Contains 10…

The director of the Chicago Academy for School Leadership addresses the kind of leadership that would have kept her, a former English teacher, from failing a struggling African-American student 30 years ago. A culture of collegial support, mentoring/coaching, results-driven professional development, and instructional leadership would have helped.…

A curriculum for teacher leadership is most potent at the inservice or professional development level. Good principal preparation programs can also be good teacher leadership programs if they capitalize on experience and adult learning principles. The University of Washington's Danforth educational leadership program has programmatic commonplaces…

The California Foreign Language Project (CFLP), established in 1988, is a voluntary professional development program designed to improve and expand elementary, secondary, and postsecondary foreign language teaching in California. CFLP consists of nine regional sites that work in conjunction with a central office to increase professional…

This article presents findings from a qualitative case study that examined the role of teacher leaders amid whole school reform. Findings suggest that leadership is ambiguous: a contested notion between principal and teacher(s) and among teachers as well. This ambiguity was manifest on the conceptual and operational levels and significantly…

Every teacher who chairs a department, leads a committee, manages a team, coordinates a program, or mentors other teachers needs this hands-on resource to accomplish basic leadership tasks with speed and precision. Filled with tips and how-to's that are left out of most teacher education courses and inservice programs, the guide covers formal and…

This book attempts to take a whole school view of approaches to making learning central, so that staffing and structures, external links and resources, are all dealt with in examining ways in which learning schools can evolve. The belief is that unless every aspect of a school's life is put under scrutiny, an emphasis on learning will remain an…

Few colleges of education include theory and practice about the need to nurture resilient teacher leaders. This issue should be addressed in order to improve the preparation and continued development of the nation's teachers, particularly those in urban schools. This newsletter suggests that as problems confronting schools, particularly urban…

This booklet for teachers reports what participants in the U.S. Department of Education's 1996 National Teacher Forum had to say about teacher leadership. Forum participants were 120 exemplary public and private school teachers nationwide. The report also includes thoughts of teachers who used e-mail to share their ideas on teacher leadership.…

This report describes the past 15 years of work by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) to raise the standards for teacher quality. The NBPTS identified five core propositions that describe the knowledge, skills, and dispositions characterizing accomplished teaching. It created professional standards for K-12 teachers,…

Suggests strategies for mobilizing more leadership and power in the early childhood profession including: (1) getting teachers, providers, and directors to the table; (2) taking time to reflect and raise questions; (3) using a constructivist, empowering pedagogy; and (4) forging relationships of integrity and respect. (SD)

Investigated the experiences of first-year teachers who learned to teach in a Professional Development School and completed an inquiry-oriented, full-year internship. Interviews conducted during the internship and first teaching years indicated that these teachers surpassed the traditional survival stage of novice teachers, had strongly developed…