Buoyed on All Sides: A Network of Support Guides Teacher Leaders in High-Needs Schools

The idea of teacher leadership holds an immense and intuitive appeal. Most educators agree that teacher leaders are essential to fostering a climate of authentic and robust leadership and learning across a school. Teacher leadership is peer leading at its most authentic, demanding, and empowering. While the value of teacher leadership may be obvious, the path to realizing successful teacher leadership is not. That path is particularly rocky for educators pressured with the demands of transforming a chronically low-performing school into a high-achieving one. Simply placing an effective teacher in a role of leadership does not automatically make him or her a leader. Teachers who have developed competence in the classroom have not necessarily developed competence in leading adults as learners or in leading systemic change in their schools. Emerging teacher leaders need sustained, intentional training and development targeted specifically to leadership development. In short, teacher leaders need support, too. This article describes the Teach Plus T3 Initiative (Turnaround Teacher Teams) that was created by teachers to address the issue of attracting and retaining high-performing teachers in chronically low-performing schools. T3 recruits, develops, and supports teams of experienced teachers--teachers with a track record of success with urban students--to teach and lead in their schools and ultimately accelerate student learning across the school.