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California has a notable history of investing in educational leaders' professional learning. In 1983, the state launched the California School Leadership Academy (CSLA), which it funded until the academy was discontinued due to statewide budget cuts in 2003. Research showed that CSLA was a source of high-quality professional development. In 2019, the state legislature reinvested in leaders' professional learning when it authorized the 21st Century California School Leadership Academy (21CSLA) to provide high-quality professional learning opportunities that are accessible and free of charge to California's PreK-12 educational leaders, including central office leaders, site leaders, and teacher leaders. The professional learning is delivered through seven regional academies that offer three primary types of learning opportunities: communities of practice (i.e., cohorts of leaders in similar roles collaboratively working on problems of practice), localized professional learning (i.e., learning opportunities developed in response to regional need), and individualized coaching by trained coaches. 21CSLA is one of several lead agencies that compose the California Statewide System of Support, an important part of the state's accountability and continuous improvement strategy that is designed to help local education agencies (LEAs) and their schools meet the needs of each student they serve. The purpose of this study is to understand how 21CSLA contributes to leadership development in California. Specifically, the study seeks to understand how 21CSLA currently supports the professional learning needs of educational leaders and how it fits within the broader state infrastructure to support educational improvement. The goal of the study is to inform policymakers and program administrators about the work and accomplishments of 21CSLA during the initiative's first 3-year grant cycle and point to ways in which the state can further support 21CSLA efforts to serve California's educational leaders.

Student achievement in California has not rebounded after the precipitous declines of the COVID-19 pandemic, with English language arts (ELA) and math scores remaining well below prepandemic levels. Student attendance has declined dramatically, and trauma and time away from school have led to mental health challenges, delays in social development, and behavioral issues among students. It is in this context that the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) has launched the Intensive Assistance Model (IAM) pilot school-improvement project, which is designed to build new approaches for teacher collaboration and student support. The IAM pilot's goal is to support schools in implementing the Professional Learning Community (PLC) at Work model, which uses an intensive support and coaching process to empower teachers as instructional leaders through developing processes, structures, and culture that support collaborative planning, data analysis, and targeted interventions. The PLC at Work model has led to measurable impacts in student achievement. Realizing the model's potential requires the active engagement of district offices to align resources, remove barriers, and support effective teaching and learning systems.

Early care and education (ECE) programs for children prior to kindergarten in California are provided through a mixed delivery system that includes licensed home- and center-based programs as well as school settings. The requirements, experience, and supports for educators vary widely across settings, depending more on funding sources and regulatory status and less on what educators and children may need. This situation is typical across the ECE system for children from infancy through preschool, though California has made substantial changes in providing preschool for four-year-olds. Transitional Kindergarten (TK) was introduced into this mix in the 2012-13 school year. As of the 2022-23 school year, TK became the only free, universal ECE program in California available for four-year-olds. This brief explores the experiences of ECE lead teachers across settings: TK classrooms, child care centers, and family child care (FCC) programs. It examines their demographics, classroom context, working conditions, compensation, and economic well-being. It identifies threads of continuity among lead teachers regardless of setting: for instance, virtually all these early educators are women, and many are age 40 or older. They teach similar numbers of dual-language learner students, and they face similar classroom challenges. By contrast, educators in centers and FCC providers are much more likely to be women of color and/or immigrant women. Teacher pay and benefits also diverge sharply, with TK educators earning at least twice the salary of other lead teachers with a bachelor's degree along with corresponding metrics of economic well-being. By exploring the experiences of teachers by setting, the authors aim to understand the state of equity in ECE employment. For the purposes of this analysis, they focus on educators who lead their respective classrooms in order to compare similar job roles and level of teaching responsibilities. They then explore the implications for sustaining an effective and equitable ECE system in California.

A principal's job is complex, demanding, and multi-faceted. Effective principals shape a school's academic vision and foster a climate for learning. In addition, they develop leadership capacity in teachers and staff, promote sound instructional practices, and use resources and data to drive school improvement (Mendels, 2012). Given these significant responsibilities, it is unsurprising that abundant research indicates that the quality of school leadership is correlated with school effectiveness. Principals and school leaders can impact student achievement, graduation rates, and the attraction and retention of qualified teachers (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2017). School leaders clearly play an important role in school systems. As such, the way leaders are identified, prepared, hired, and supported is critical to high quality teaching and learning in schools. [The report was written with Soung Bae.]

This brief summarizes the practices of successful, instructionally engaged leaders and the ways districts develop these leaders. These practices are drawn from "positive outlier" districts in California that have excelled at helping African American, Latino/a, and White students achieve at high levels on assessments of academic standards in English language arts and mathematics. Case studies of seven of these districts indicate that districts can develop leaders by identifying leadership talent from among teachers and then cultivating their talent to enable some to move into principalships and central office positions. Successful practices of these leaders included engagement in collaborative professional learning through observation of instruction, participation in professional learning communities, and use of student data to guide school and district decisions. [This brief is based on the full report, "Closing the Opportunity Gap: How Positive Outlier Districts in California Are Pursuing Equitable Access to Deeper Learning. Positive Outliers Series" (ED610874).]

Gridley Unified School District serves just over 2,000 students across five schools in a small rural town in the upper Sacramento Valley. The median annual household income in Gridley is just over 60% of the state average. Gridley Unified is one of seven districts studied by researchers at the Learning Policy Institute in a mixed-methods study that sought to learn from positive outlier districts in which African American, Latino/a, and White students did better than predicted on California's mathematics and English language arts tests from 2015 through 2017, after accounting for differences in socioeconomic status. This in-depth case study describes the critical practices and policies within Gridley Unified that have promoted student learning, especially among students of color, in the context of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the deeper learning they seek to foster. Through an analysis of interview, documentary, and observational evidence, this case study describes key factors that helped support student success in Gridley Unified.

The Instructional Leadership Corps (ILC) is an innovative professional learning project in which teacher leaders in California collaborate to lead sustainable professional development to support implementation of new student standards within their districts. Over more than 4 years, the ILC has served over 100,000 teachers. The responses of these educators to ILC conferences and trainings have been overwhelmingly positive. This brief describes how the ILC has changed the professional development landscape in four communities, offering lessons about how teacher-led learning can motivate shifts in practice, enhance teachers' professionalism and efficacy, and create supportive systems and strategic relationships that can sustain change. [For the full report, see ED603444.]

NGSS Early Implementers is a six-year initiative created to help eight California school districts and two charter management organizations, supported by WestEd's K-12 Alliance, implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The Initiative has used a train-the-trainer model to maximize spread of professional learning about the NGSS in each participating district. However, they expanded upon this model by explicitly preparing teachers to not only provide leadership in how to implement NGSS teaching, but also to become catalysts for change in their districts. This evaluation report explains how the Initiative prepared teachers for leadership in NGSS teaching, including how it created a culture of collaboration that produced change agents for science education and NGSS implementation. It also conveys how the leadership experience affected teacher leaders' actions and professional growth. Intended for school, state, and district leaders, the report addresses the following: (1) The organizational structure of teacher leadership in the Initiative; (2) How teachers were prepared for leadership in NGSS teaching; (3) How the Initiative empowered and challenged teachers to be change agents in their districts; (4) The many ways that Early Implementer teachers have provided leadership in NGSS implementation; and (5) The impact of the Initiative on teacher professional growth. Finally, recommendations are provided to administrators for encouraging and leveraging teacher leadership in support of NGSS implementation.

The Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) conducted a multiyear, multimethod effort to learn how school districts, charter schools, and regional partners can support the successful implementation, expansion, and sustainability of personalized learning (PL) in schools. The vision for PL is to tailor instruction to individual students' strengths, needs, and personal interests--often integrating technology--to boost student outcomes. CRPE researchers used a combination of field studies, surveys, and secondary data analysis to explore how schools, districts, and partner organizations help to seed and grow PL, and what the results were. Key questions for the project included: What do principals, teachers, and system leaders need to know and be able to do to successfully support, implement, and scale up PL; What policies and practices--at the classroom, school, district, partnership, and state levels--offered important supports (and barriers) for successfully implementing and scaling up PL; and What were the early results for teachers and students?

NGSS Early Implementers is a four-year initiative created to help eight California school districts and two charter management organizations, supported by WestEd's K-12 Alliance, implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Designed for professional developers and administrators, this report describes 10 tools and processes that are central in the professional learning provided to teachers and administrators in the participating school districts. The tools and processes are designed to aid NGSS lesson planning, NGSS instruction, and administrator support during implementation. The 10 tools and processes presented in the publication are: (1) Criteria for Choosing Phenomena; (2) Phenomena-Based, Three-Dimensional Conceptual Flow; (3) 5E Instructional Model for Developing Learning Sequences; (4) Teaching Learning Collaborative (TLC); (5) Looking at Student Work; (6) Questioning Strategies that Promote Student Discourse; (7) Sense-Making Student Notebooks; (8) Principal Academy; (9) Walk-Through Protocol; and (10) Evidence of Learning Protocol. All tools and processes were created or adapted to be used explicitly for supporting NGSS implementation. The report describes each item, how it has been used, and how participants are benefitting from it. Other districts and schools can learn from, draw upon, and adapt the items to support their own implementation efforts.

Providing teachers with data-driven feedback, aligned professional development and opportunities for advancement may help limit attrition, contribute to more effective teaching, and improve student learning. However, research shows that much of the professional development teachers currently receive does not improve either teacher or student performance. While professional teacher organizations have worked with educators to develop and articulate a clear vision for quality professional learning, many districts are not yet implementing systems in alignment with best practices. This Policy Snapshot explores recent legislation related to teacher professional development and advancement, including targeted supports and leadership opportunities.

For several years, WestEd's Measure to Learn and Improve (MLI) project team has kept state policy leaders informed about statewide implementation of the California Academic Standards in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics, by summarizing and disseminating survey results from the RAND Corporation's annual American Educator Panel (AEP) surveys of teachers and principals. This brief summarizes recent survey results from California educators related to school site leadership.

Economic inequality across the country is growing, and its impact on students' access to educational opportunities is significant. To explore the role teachers can play (and are playing) in ensuring that public education continues to be a forceful driver of social equity and in disrupting the structures, cultures, and practices that effectively maintain this system of inequality, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University conducted the Teacher Leadership and Advocacy (TLA) study. We examine how teachers, alongside family and community partners, are utilizing their experiences and expertise to share new ideas and evidence that can continue to build an ecology for equitable education reform. Specifically, we explore how teachers are leading and engaging in advocacy for policy change that can lead to system change and improvement. The findings and recommendations of the TLA study come from an exploration of current efforts to activate individual and collective teacher leadership and advocacy. The study partnered with six educational organizations from around the country whose leaders and members responded to three research questions: (1) Why engage teachers as leaders and advocates within policy-making? (2) How are the profiled organizations dismantling challenges and barriers to leadership and advocacy? and (3) What are the policy-oriented outcomes of teacher leadership and advocacy?

This brief is the first in a series of reports examining the teacher shortage dilemma. It considers what the research says about teacher shortages and highlights recent state task force findings. Designed to guide state leaders in policy decisions, the briefs that follow examine five strategies states are using to address shortages: (1) Alternative Certification; (2) Financial Incentives; (3) Induction and Mentorship; (4) Evaluation and Feedback; and (5) Teacher Leadership.

The premise of the white paper is that education policy results are better for students when policies are informed and shaped by highly effective educators who know firsthand what it takes to deliver excellent teaching and learning. Policymakers and educators should share a sense of urgency to work together to provide every child in our country with an excellent education. Through interviews with ten educators throughout the United States, the authors provide real-life examples of ways in which these practitioners have successfully engaged in the policy process. In some examples, that engagement is at the local level; at the state or national level; and through different policy mechanisms. The paper is organized by the types of policy engagement experienced by State Teachers of the Year (STOYs) and Finalists. These are: (1) Informing and Shaping Federal Policy; (2) Engaging Educator Colleagues in the Policy Process; (3) Working With Policymakers to Craft Legislation; (4) Effectively Engaging With State Policymakers; (4) Hybrid Roles: Bridging Policy Development and the Classroom; (5) Advancing Teacher Leadership Through Policy at the National and International Levels; (6) Shaping Policy Through Relationships with Unions and Organizations; (7) Educators Serving as Policymakers; and (8) Supporting Engagement in Policy Through Teacher Leadership.

A state department of education (SDE) served by the Southeast Comprehensive Center (SECC) at SEDL requested information regarding state use of schoolwide, large-scale professional learning communities (PLCs). Specifically, the SDE staff wanted to know the following with respect to PLC work in other states: (1) Are PLCs state-mandated through legislation, policy, or regulation? (2) What types of PLCs have been established, and are they part of other state-based initiatives? (3) Are PLCs established statewide, as stand-alones, or at the school or district levels? and (4) What support does the state provide for its PLCs, such as training and resources? This Information Request provides a discussion of the procedure for selecting materials to include in this request, limitations of the materials, and information regarding statewide use of PLCs. This information includes reference resources from Learning Forward, Learning Point Associates, and the State Educational Technology Directors Association; several specific examples of states that have implemented PLCs; and resource summaries that delineate recommendations and findings regarding the quality and effectiveness of PLCs.

Four organizations with promising practices in teacher Professional Growth & Support have significantly raised outcomes for low-income students. The charter management networks, Achievement First and Aspire Public Schools, and the two reform organizations, Teach Plus and Agile Mind, have successfully increased student achievement with a sustained focus on teaching effectiveness and capacity. As these organizations respond to the challenges of Common Core standards, invest heavily in teaching capacity through teacher leadership and collaborative planning time, and capitalize on assessment and evaluation data and technology, they exemplify best practices in Professional Growth & Support. They also reinforce what Education Resource Strategies (ERS) terms the Eight Principles of a Strategic Professional Growth & Support System which are outlined here. The eight principles summarize ERS research and work with partner school systems and are the foundation for ERS' white paper, "A New Vision for Teacher Professional Growth & Support: Six Steps to a More Powerful School System Strategy" and related tools. This "Case Study of Aspire Public Schools" is one of a series of four case studies. Each one describes the mission and background of the organization, strategic approaches to Professional Growth & Support, performance results, program costs, lessons learned, and next steps. "Case Study of Aspire Public Schools" focuses on how Aspire Public Schools emphasize teacher teaming around regular student data with support from content experts and teacher leaders. "Current Aspire Teacher Leader Career Path" is appended. [Also included in this series are: (1) Promising Practices in Professional Growth & Support: "Case Study of Achievement First" ED545132; (2) Promising Practices in Professional Growth & Support: "Case Study of Teach Plus" ED545134; and (3) Promising Practices in Professional Growth & Support: "Case Study of Agile Mind" ED545136.]

In spring 2012, after a year of intensive data analysis and planning, the colleges participating in Completion by Design announced strategies for creating clear, structured routes through college for more students, often referred to as accelerated, structured pathways to completion. These strategies contain elements unique to each college, but all drive toward helping students enroll early in program streams that lead to a major, and keeping students engaged and progressing until they complete credentials with labor market value. To that end, the strategies include interventions such as strategic dual enrollment, mandatory orientation, improved advising, acceleration of developmental education, early enrollment in programs of study, and close monitoring of student progress. Now that the colleges have settled upon their strategies, the critical next step is for the states to assess how they can best support the institutions and scale up their best innovations as they design and implement structured pathways. However, a robust focus on strengthening student pathways represents a new frontier for both community colleges and the state policy environments in which they operate. As a result, Jobs for the Future (JFF) has looked across the participating states to develop 10 high-leverage policies that can accelerate institutional change toward systemic, student-focused structured pathways. These recommendations are not meant to be prescriptive, nor do they comprise an exhaustive list of potential policies that states could implement to improve postsecondary completion rates. Rather, these policies align tightly to the goal of supporting colleges as they build structured pathways. The policy recommendations, summarized in this paper, are organized by the four phases of the initiative's Preventing Loss, Creating Momentum Framework. This policy brief is designed to be a living document. JFF will vet the document with states, college representatives, and partners on the Completion by Design National Assistance Team, see which ideas gain traction, and revise and adapt it over time to reflect changes in the priorities and strategies of the initiative and its participating colleges and states. Alignment between the Completion by Design Pathway Design Principles and the Policy Recommendations is appended. (Contains 3 figures and 2 tables.) [For executive summary, "Cornerstones of Completion: State Policy Support for Accelerated, Structured Pathways to College Credentials and Transfer: Executive Summary," see ED539878.]

The teaching profession has long been structured around full-time classroom responsibilities that are defined by the location, timing, and schedule of the school day and a ubiquitous one-teacher-per-classroom model. In most districts, the only option for highly successful teachers to advance in the profession or serve more students is to leave the classroom to serve as an assistant principal, principal, or district administrator. Exceptions to this traditional approach exist in many schools and districts across the country. According to a 2009 national survey, more than half of teachers (56 percent) and nearly half of principals (49 percent) report that at least some teachers in their school combine part-time classroom teaching with other roles or responsibilities in their school or district. But evidence does not suggest these nontraditional roles are particularly innovative, focused on enhancing teacher quality, or designed to extend the reach of the best teachers to more students. Across the country, interest is increasing in alternative approaches to school staffing that provide more flexible work roles and advancement opportunities for highly effective teachers--both as a means to recognize and retain teachers in hard-to-staff schools, and to allow the best teachers to have a positive impact on larger numbers of students. With this growing interest, the field needs to learn what it can from early adopters of role-shifting reforms. This paper profiles two organizations--a small charter management organization based in California and a large school district in Virginia--that have recently pursued staffing innovations designed with these goals in mind. While they have taken very different approaches, both study sites offer examples of the types of roles that other districts, schools, and charter organizations can pursue to open up and professionalize teachers' work, while revealing several critical limitations related to design and implementation that the next generation of innovators should heed. (Contains 4 figures and 25 endnotes.)

This work focuses on the importance of teacher leadership in the virtual environment and the role of managers in the workforce. It depicts student expectations of the virtual classroom, specifically the professor's role in this environment. The study on teachers in the virtual environment is compared and contrasted with generational differences in the role of managers and the role of leadership in this occurrence.

During the course of this study, I examine the effective uses of professional learning communities in relation to building leadership capacity among teachers. The literature reviewed illustrates and addresses the need for teachers to see themselves, not only as professionals, but as leaders. This study addresses the effects of this much needed sense of professionalism and confidence within teachers. This study includes interviews with principals and teachers with experience using professional learning communities in this capacity. The interviews not only demonstrate how professional communities can and are used effectively, but also what the effects of their use have on teacher satisfaction and teacher effectiveness.

Charol Shakeshaft and Margaret Grogan have just finished a book called "Women and Educational Leadership" for a leadership series published by Jossey-Bass. For those engaged in the preparation and development of school leaders, women's leadership is thus recognized along with Distributed Leadership, Turnaround Leadership, Ethical Leadership, Teacher Leadership, Sustainable Leadership, etc. In other words, women's leadership has gained legitimacy in the PreK-12 educational sector. Professors and researchers of leadership now have an excellent body of research to draw upon, and have reason to rethink how leadership of schools and districts can be enacted. Policy implications of this include the need for collecting more accurate data at the state and local level to verify the numbers of women serving as principal and superintendent; despite the promise of new leadership approaches that is grounded in Grogan, Shakeshaft, and others' research, women are still surprisingly underrepresented in these powerful positions. In this paper the author traces the development of the book as it grew out of Shakeshaft and Grogan's research, along with the research of others who have been studying women in PreK-12 leadership in education. Grogan describes the context of this book to help those unfamiliar with women's leadership understand why it is still important, in 2010, to draw attention to women doing work that has traditionally been done by men. She also reflects upon why she thinks that such a book on women's leadership is timely. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

This monograph is based on a keynote presentation by Angus McBeath at the "Getting Districtwide Results" Conference in Long Beach, California, which was co-sponsored by the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform and Focus on Results. The author, a former superintendent of the Edmonton Public Schools, how his school district was "forced" and "shoved" into becoming a learning organization in an effort to improve districtwide student results. Data forced them to admit they were not doing a good job and to develop a plan that addressed their shortcomings. A list of seven expectations were developed at Edmonton to get principals to support teachers: (1) Find an area of academic weakness in one's school that may negatively impact all results--Fourteen of Edmonton's high schools said it was reading; (2) Develop a teacher leadership team along with the principal to be a guiding coalition in the school that would help people sustain the work; (3) Select three to five high-quality, tried-and-true best practices that teachers would use in every classroom with every student in every subject area; (4) Target professional development; (5) Realign everything in the school in support of one's academic weakness; (6) Have a monthly internal accountability system in the school where one would check to see how it was going; and (7) Principals as instructional leaders--It was found that going to site-based management failed to make central office focus on student achievement as there were too many manuals, rules, and provisions. Central office personnel were resistant to change and had to be coached to develop their own collaboration teams, devise specific ways to support schools, and to monitor them. An editor's note to this article states that over the past six years, Edmonton Public Schools has made significant gains in student achievement as is evidenced by rising test scores and increased graduation rates.

The San Francisco Math Leadership Project was started in 1984 as one of the sites of the California Mathematics Project. During the past 15 years, nearly 500 elementary and middle level classroom teachers participated by attending a year long program which included an intensive summer institute and during the year activities. One goal was to provide a program that improved teachers' effectiveness by increasing their own confidence in learning and teaching mathematics. A second goal focused on developing teachers' leadership skills so that they could share their expertise with colleagues in their schools and participate in local conferences, thus enlarging the nucleus of mathematics leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area. The primary purpose of this chapter is to describe particular aspects of the project that have helped to develop leadership among the participants. It also describes the variety of leadership activities in which the participants have engaged over the years. Many of the outcomes could not have been predicted at the beginning of this project. It is only by looking back that we can really see the total impact of this long running professional development program. (Author)

Teacher leadership development programs require careful design if they are to meet the challenges of today's science and mathematics education reform initiatives. This chapter describes the design of one such program using a design framework developed to plan and analyze effective professional development programs. The program, the California Science Implementation Network (CSIN), develops teacher leaders to assist their schools and others to improve the quality of their science programs. CSIN's context, the knowledge and beliefs that influenced their design, the strategies they use, and the issues they face, are discussed in detail in the chapter. A vignette of a school district participating in CSIN illustrates how teacher leadership grows and functions in one setting. (Contains 13 references.) (Author/MVL)

This paper examines the demands on teachers' knowledge, attitudes, and practice associated with reforms commonly attempted in high schools and the corresponding opportunities for teacher development. Data come from a study of comprehensive school reform to illuminate the degree of fit between high school reform agendas and teachers' professional demands and opportunities. The paper examines two issues: the contribution of professional development to a school's capacity for reforms targeted at teaching and learning and how working in a reform-active environment affects teachers' practice and commitment. Section 1 examines high school traditions and reforms (the California School Restructuring Demonstration Program and the School Restructuring Study). Section 2 discusses student experience in the restructuring schools and why teacher development matters. Section 3 highlights restructured learning conditions. Section 4 presents three cases of restructuring schools, focusing on reform and professional development. Section 5 examines contributions of professional development in the context of whole school reform, highlighting: reform focus and the value attached to professional development, reform goals and the magnitude of change for individual teachers, the significance of professional community, and the role of administrator and teacher leadership. (Contains 42 references.) (SM)