The involvement of teachers in the debate about school reform has spurred an unprecedented focus on the need for teacher leadership. During the past decade, teachers began to assert their own version of leadership-one that differs from administrative or managerial versions. The emerging models in Rochester NY; Hammond, IN; and elsewhere offer important lessons and suggest key policy implications.
Central to any efforts to improve our urban schools is the relationship between the school managers and the teachers' union. Without labor-management collaboration, the best efforts of management are tantamount to one hand clapping. The suggestions contained here are predicated on the assumption that district and union leaders are willing to forge a genuine partnership and develop sufficient trust to turn goodwill into results. These recommendations include creating learner-centered schools; focusing on improving the knowledge and skills of teachers; negotiating `Living Contracts;' and expanding school choice by making public schools more like private—without privatizing public education.
With this issue, Educational Policy begins a Viewpoints section in which, from time to time, short discussion or opinion pieces will appear These will not be research articles but will rather express timely and, sometimes, controversial viewpoints on current issues of educational policy. We hope the Viewpoints section will stimulate discussion and debate. 7he editors invite readers to respond with comments or to present their own viewpoints.
What would schools be like 10 years from now if the reforms that we are pursuing were deepened and accelerated? How would teaching and learning change? In what ways would school governance and teachers' unions be different? What must communities do to sustain such a transformed educational system? This article lays out one scenario that is both possible and already in the making. It offers hope that we can begin to build tomorrow today-and that if we can envision it, we can also achieve it.
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