Enhancing Teacher Leadership

Identify and create opportunities for teachers to assume leadership roles in schools.

Resource 1:
Teacher Leadership Practices
York-Barr, J. & Duke, K. (2004). What do we know about teacher leadership? Findings from
two decades of scholarship. Review of Educational Research, 74(3), 255–316.
Research reveals that teacher leadership is practiced in a variety of ways. Sometimes
teachers serve in formal leadership positions and, at other times, leadership is
demonstrated in informal ways. This piece discusses the ways in which teacher
leadership has evolved over time; the levels of leadership work for teacher leaders; and
specific domains of teacher leadership practice.

Resource 2:
Ten Roles for Teacher Leaders
Harrison, C., & Killion, J. (September, 2007). Ten roles for teacher leaders. Educational
Leadership, 65(1). Retrieved 9/25/07 from http://tinyurl.com/2l9xzn
This resource describes 10 roles that teacher leaders can assume to help support school
and student success.

Resource 3:
Teacher Leadership Opportunities
Barth, R. S. (2001). Teacher leader. Phi Delta Kappan, 82(6), 443–449.
This article identifies 10 areas where teacher leadership is essential to the health of a school.
These areas affect “a teacher’s ability to work with students” and are among the domains in
which teacher leadership is most needed and least seen.”

Resource 4:
Opportunities for Teachers to Lead
Childs-Bowen, D., Moller, G., & Scrivner. J. (2000, May). Principals: Leaders of leaders.
National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) Bulletin, 84(616), 27–34.
This article describes the areas in which principals can create opportunities for teachers to lead.

Resource 5:
New Approaches to Teacher Leadership
Smylie, M., Conley, S., & Marks, H. M. (2002). Exploring new approaches to teacher leadership
for school improvement. In J. Murphy (Ed.), The educational leadership challenge:
Redefining leadership for the 21st century (pp.162–188). Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. This article presents three new approaches to teacher leadership that appear to be more effective than formal leadership roles in promoting school improvement:
• Teacher research as leadership; teacher inquiry in collaborative contexts can create new
opportunities for teachers to learn and to lead efforts to improve their schools.
• New models of distributive leadership; these models indicate that teachers can and do
perform important leadership tasks inside and outside formal positions of authority.
• Leadership of teams; self-managed teams promote teacher collaboration; improve
teaching and learning, and address problems of school organization.

Resource 6:
State Projects to Strengthen Leadership in Schools
State Action for Education Leadership Project. (2002, Winter). Leading the Way [Newsletter].
Retrieved November 1, 2007, from http://www.nasbe.org/Research_Projects/saelp.pdf
The State Action for Education Leadership Project (SAELP) is a partnership that assists state
decision makers in strengthening school leadership. Connecticut’s efforts to support education
leadership include “increasing opportunities for teachers to take on leadership responsibilities
within schools” (p. 3). Rhode Island has as a leadership goal “to provide opportunities for shared leadership between teachers and principals to build capacity, thereby creating potential
succession programs” (p. 6).

Resource 7:
Strengthening Teacher Leadership
Zehr M. A. (2001, April). Teacher leadership should be strengthened, report says. Education
Week, 20(32), 5.
Schools should be reorganized to give teachers “richer opportunities to be leaders.” For
example, if teachers were involved in educational policy matters, states would not have the
problem of “having standardized tests that are not aligned with academic standards.” As this
article points out, seeking input from teachers in developing and implementing test standards and accountability measures would alleviate the alignment problem.

Resource 8:
Teacher Leadership Development on School-based Teams
Brown, C. L. (2001). Teachers Academy: A qualitative study of teacher leadership development
on school-based teams. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
This study analyzed the development of the Teachers Academy, a locally initiated network of
secondary schools, and its impact on teacher leadership within individual schools. The
researcher, using a case study approach, observed, described, and analyzed nine Teachers
Academy teams within one school district.

Resource 9:
Teacher Leadership Roles
Boyd, V., & McGree, K. (1995). Leading change from the classroom: Teachers as leaders.
Issues…About Change, 4(4). Retrieved November 1, 2007, from
http://www.sedl.org/change/issues/issues44.html
Traditional teacher leadership roles include team leaders, department chairs, association leaders, and curriculum developers. Today, there is a movement to increase teacher professional
development to expand teacher leadership roles; this movement is based on the understanding
that “teachers, because they have daily contacts with learners, are in the best position to make
critical decisions about curriculum and instruction” and are better able “to implement changes in a comprehensive and continuous manner.” Further, the advocates for expanded teacher
leadership roles are also motivated by the need to attract and retain qualified teachers.

Resource 10:
The Role of Teacher Leaders in Shaping School Policies and Programs
Danielson, C. (2006). Chapter 5: Schoolwide policies and programs. In C. Danielson, Teacher
leadership that strengthens professional practice. Alexandria, VA: Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development. Retrieved November 1, 2007, from
http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/template.chapter/menuitem.5d91564f4fe4548cdeb3f
fdb62108a0c/?chapterMgmtId=0c11876d39b29010VgnVCM1000003d01a8c0RCRD
Teacher leaders can play a pivotal role in shaping school structures, policies, and programs to
maximize student learning. These schoolwide policies and programs fall into the following major
categories:
• School organization and structure
• Student policies
• Student programs and activities
• Staff programs
This resource provides examples of how both emerging and established teacher leaders can work
in specific areas of school organization and structure, student policies, student programs, and
staff programs.

Resource 11: Formal and Informal Tasks of Teacher Leaders
Gabriel, J. G. (2005). How to thrive as a teacher leader. Alexandria, VA: Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development.
This hands-on resource is a guide that covers “formal and informal tasks that teacher leaders at
every grade level are expected to know but rarely do.”