School Leader

This brief describes the prevalence of the highest performing teachers in 10 purposely selected districts across seven states. The patterns suggest that students from low-income families have unequal access, on average, to the district’s highest performing teachers at the middle school level but not at the elementary level. The data also indicate that there is variation in the types of inequitable access: Some districts have an underrepresentation of the highest performing teachers in high-poverty elementary and middle schools.

Establish opportunities for teacher leadership:

• Provide strong instructional support to teacher leaders.
• Empower teacher leaders to collaborate on curriculum and instructional design.
• Empower teacher leaders to provide constructive feedback to peers.
• Empower teacher leaders to provide induction, mentoring, and other professional development support to develop a strong collaborative school atmosphere. 

Encourage school leaders to use climate and working conditions data to focus and improve their school improvement plans and their own leadership performance. 

Conduct working conditions surveys, focus groups, and interviews among teachers, other instructional staff, and students, and encourage school leaders to use the resulting data to focus and improve their school improvement plans and their own leadership performance. Research continues to show that working conditions influence a teacher’s decision to stay in or leave a school and sometimes the profession. Research also shows that working conditions can affect teacher effectiveness. 

Improve working conditions to attract, develop, and retain teachers for students from low-income and minority families. 

Ensure that local education agencies focus on supporting instructional leadership in high-need schools to provide teaching staff the working conditions they need to succeed for improved teacher recruitment, development, and retention. 

Leverage teacher and principal evaluation results to identify targeted, job-embedded professional development.

Reliably implement a comprehensive educator evaluation system to help determine whether the access to great teachers and leaders is equitable in your school, across your district, and across your state.

Evaluate and consider expanding the professional development opportunities that colleges of education provide specifically to strengthen teaching in high-need schools:

Leverage principal evaluation systems to enhance leadership for effective teaching and leading in high-need districts and schools.