Enhancing teacher leadership.

Enhancing teacher leadership
Enhancing teacher leadership can help schools and districts reach the following goals:
Improve teacher quality, this means that, teacher expertise is at the foundation for increasing teacher quality and advancements in the teaching-learning process; this expertise becomes more available, when accomplished teachers model instructional practices, encourage sharing of best practices, mentor new teachers, and collaborate with teaching colleagues. Teacher leaders’ expertise about teaching and learning is needed to lead instructional improvement and increase teacher quality. This is the first aspect in which the school as a community takes advantage and improve as a system within all its elements: Teachers, students, authorities, researchers and administrators.
One way a principal can improve teacher quality is to support staff development needs. Teacher leaders can help principals support professional development by identifying teacher development needs, offering professional learning experience, developing and delivering opportunities, and evaluating the outcomes of staff development.
Improve student learning, maybe this factor is the most important, the improvement of student learning requires every leader in the school to focus on that outcome. Once the leader had focused on the outcome he designs a way and the use of strategies to reach it. Teachers who model learning for students can help to create a community of learners. Teacher leadership leads to teacher growth and learning, and when teachers learn, their students learn.
Ensure that education reform efforts work, the influence of teacher leadership is important to education reform. Teacher leaders can help to guide fellow teachers as well as the school at large toward higher standards of achievement and individual responsibility for school reform. Reform possibilities are responsibility of teachers; they are on the front lines and know the classroom issues, because they interact directly with the students, they know the culture of the school, and the types of support they need to do their jobs.
Recruit, retain, motivate, and reward accomplished teachers, one major reason for the new interest in teacher leadership is the desire to recruit, retain, motivate, and reward accomplished teachers. Acknowledging their expertise and contributions and providing opportunities for growth and influence can support these objectives. This feedback plays an important role in the process, the teachers feel motivated and this recognition sometimes is vital. Teachers want to work in schools that are designed for them to be successful and in which they have influence on key decisions that affect instruction and student success.
Provide opportunities for professional growth, a clear effect of teacher leadership are the growth and learning for the teachers themselves. When teachers pursue leadership opportunities, their lives are enriched and energized, and their knowledge and skills in teaching increase dramatically, leading to increased confidence and a stronger commitment to teaching. Professional growth also occurs as the result of collaboration with peers, assisting other teachers, working with administrators, and being exposed to new ideas.

Extend principal capacity, teacher leadership provides the additional person power needed to run the organizational operations of the school, which are too complex for principals to run alone. Indeed, teacher leaders are a source of reliable, useful, and professional help for the principal. Teacher leaders are able to assume some of the principal’s many responsibilities, including those of instructional leader.

Create a more democratic school environment, when teacher leaders take on important school wide responsibilities and are centrally involved in school decision making, they are able to transform their school into a democracy. Students benefit from observing and experiencing democratic, participatory forms of government. They also benefit from higher teacher morale because their teachers are involved in democratic decision making and school leadership.









Pedro Ayuso Vera