10 Ways to Identify, Coach, and Support Teacher Leaders

Recently I came upon a great idea from Bill Ferriter on The Tempered Radical where he asks the question, "What do teacher leaders need from administrators?"  This is a fantastic question.  As principals begin to implement changes in their schools, they need to have a finger on the pulse of their teacher leaders.  These "high flyers" are the group that will be the tipping point for momentum in the building.  If a principal can gain support for changes from the teacher leaders, the teacher leaders will then become strong salespeople and recruiters with the rest of the staff.  Identifying, coaching, supporting teacher leaders is one of the most important things a principal can do.  And so.....on to 10 ways to identify, coach, and support teacher leaders:

1. Find those teachers with a strong moral compass for students.  The teachers who place the students' interests over their own.
2. Empower them to try new ideas and to share with others. 
3. Model positive approaches to reflection in the light of critical feedback.
4. Talk through and share your own thought process on decisions and ideas with teacher leaders.
5. Search out feedback from teacher leaders...don't wait for them bring it to you.
6. Talk with teacher leaders and find out what their personal/professional goals are.  Then actively try to help them achieve those.
7. Allow teacher leaders to mentor other teachers but also provide them with feedback on their mentoring.
8. Model continuous learning.  Take them through book studies, share current educational literature, provide opportunities to attend conferences and attend them yourself (within reason), share your experiences with learning from your mistakes.
9. Understand that when your teacher leaders leave to pursue leadership opportunities in other places (teacher leader becoming administrator in another building) this reflects well on your leadership.  Don't be afraid of what you will lose when they leave, the quality of teacher you attract will be much higher than you were able to attract before you began growing teacher leaders.
10. Don't be afraid to admit when you are wrong.  Your teacher leaders will see your humility and learn much from it.

Double Jeopardy for Students at Risk!

I recently came across an interesting report from The Annie E. Casey Foundation which according to their website (http://www.aecf.org/) is, "...is a private charitable organization, dedicated to helping build better futures for disadvantaged children in the United States. The primary mission of the Foundation is to foster public policies, human-service reforms, and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of today’s vulnerable children and families. In pursuit of this goal, the Foundation makes grants that help states, cities and neighborhoods fashion more innovative, cost-effective responses to these needs."

This report entitled Double Jeopardy: How Third-Grade Reading Skills and Poverty Influence High School Graduation is very sobering especially when viewed in light of the moral imperative of education.  I've included some of the more powerful quotes from the report below:

• "Results of a longitudinal study of nearly 4,000 students find that those who don't read proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to leave school without a diploma than proficient readers.  For the worst readers, those those [who] couldn't master even the basic skills by third grade, the rate is nearly six times greater" (p. 3).

• "The combined effect of reading poorly and living in poverty puts these children in double jeopardy" (p. 3).

• "One in six children who are not reading proficiently in third grade do not graduate from high school on time, a rate four times greater than that for proficient readers" (p. 3).

• "For children who were poor for at least a year and were not reading proficiently in third grade, the proportion that don't finish school rose to 26 percent.  That's more than six times the rate for all proficient readers" (p. 4).

• "Third grade is an important pivot point in a child's education, the time when students shift from learning to read and begin reading to learn.  Interventions for struggling readers after third grade are seldom as effective as those in the early years" (p. 4).

• "...children with the lowest reading scores account for a third of students but for more than three-fifths (63 percent) of all children who do not graduate from high school" (p. 6).

• "...the children in poor families are in double jeopardy:  They are more likely to have low reading test scores and, at any reading-skill level, they are less likely to graduate from high school" (p. 7).

What does this mean?  To be blunt, unless schools have programs in place to provide intense, sustained interventions to primary students who are below level in reading, we will continue to send students on past third grade who are very much in danger of falling into a group that has little chance of graduating.  Sobering thoughts...


References:

Hernandez, D. J. (2011). Double jeopardy: How third-grade reading skills and poverty influence high school graduation. Albany, NY: The Annie E. Casey Foundation.