On the Albert Shanker Institute’s blog, veteran high school teacher David B. Cohen writes that he is optimistic about the long-term prospects for teacher leadership, particularly in the form of “third-tier” or master teacher licenses that would enable accomplished classroom educators to play a greater role in school decision-making. One reason such initatives are gaining momentum, he says, is the increasingly conspicuous need for them:
Administrators are stretched thin, and their own experiences and skills vary too much to rely on their ranks alone for instructional leadership. Especially on hot-button, large-scale reforms like teacher evaluation, we've seen that oppositional, top-down reform generates conflict and compromises the change, while trust, collaboration, and distributed leadership work.