Teacher-Powered Schools
Teacher-Powered Schools are about fulfilling one of the nation’s greatest responsibilities: preparing the next generation of young people to reach their full potential, contribute to their communities, and participate in a 21st century global economy. Public education needs innovation and transformation to fulfill this responsibility. Teacher-Powered Schools enable teachers, those who work closest with students, to be the driving force behind this change.
About Teacher-Powered Schools
Teacher-Powered Schools was launched in 2014 with the goals of highlighting the successes of teacher-powered schools, and inspiring other teacher teams to either take charge in their schools or design and run new schools.
While we recognize the many other important efforts focused on teacher leadership and professionalism—for example, offering pathways for advancement without leaving the classroom, amplifying teachers’ voices, and fostering PLCs—our explicit focus is on supporting teacher teams in securing collective autonomy to design and run schools.
Importantly, Teacher-Powered Schools is not in opposition to principals. All teacher-powered schools have leaders and many do in fact have a principal. The difference is, in a teacher-powered school, final decision-making authority lies with the collective group of teachers. Teachers identify students’ needs and design schools to directly meet those needs. Administrators, selected by teachers, work to support teacher teams’ decisions—not the other way around. This is essentially the “professional partnership” organizational form, that is so common in other sectors, applied to public education.
Teacher-Powered Schools is a collaborative effort of people who work to:
Build awareness among teachers that they have the option of coming together to design and run teacher-powered schools, should they choose. We do this through newsletters, blog posts, social media, traditional media, and more.
Support teachers in designing, launching, and sustaining teacher-powered schools. We do this by facilitating networks, hosting conferences and other events, developing resources and guides, and providing professional development and direct technical assistance to teachers.
Advocate for teacher-powered schools among administrators, unions, associations, and policymakers. We do this by educating them on the staggering levels of public support for the idea, and by documenting the ways in which teachers use policy to secure collective autonomy.
Teacher-Powered Schools is laser-focused on improving student learning and improving the teaching profession. Not from the top-down, but from the ground up. Teachers, administrators, union and association leaders, parents, and policymakers should explore the untapped potential of teacher-powered schools for their community.