Education|Evolving

In redesigning schools we should focus on motivating the workers: both students and teachers. . .

. . . We can now have schools that motivate professional teachers.

How a Public School Looks When Managed by a Teacher Partnership

There's growing interest in improving (as some say) the "management of human capital" in education: teacher recruitments, teacher-retention, teacher compensation, teacher accountability. Usually this suggests 'better administration' in the standard boss/worker model. Yet it's possible these decisions might be made with greater integrity by teachers themselves within the framework of a professional partnership. This interview with Carrie Bakken is the most revealing look we've ever had at the way a teacher partnership handles the professional and the management issues in running a public school.

Professionals and Administrators; Two models of Organization. (pdf)

These are notes of a long evening with a group of teachers (assembled by the MEA lobbyist) and the partners and administrators in a law firm and a medical clinic. The discussion about the relationship of professionals and administrators, in law and medicine, compared to the relationship of principal and teachers in a typical school, is fascinating; especially the teachers' questions about relative pay and about who-decides-what.

Teacher Partnerships and Teacher Unions. (pdf)

A teacher from Milwaukee describes for the Teacher Union Reform Network the arrangement in Milwaukee—a variation on Wisconsin's chartering law—that gives a partnership of professional teachers full authority and responsibility for the school while protecting both the teachers and the union on the economic front.

Teachers in Professional Practice: An inventory of new opportunities for teachers (Second Edition). (pdf)

This 2006 inventory of existing and developing teacher professional partnerships (TPPs) documents growing interest in a professional model of teaching. The inventory describes several teacher professional partnership models, offering a useful overview of the many ways in which teacher partnerships are organizing and functioning.

TPP 21: Teacher Professional Partnerships for the 21st Century

TPP21 is a new venture to provide assistance to teachers, school districts, and states to help them understand, support, and implement teacher professional partnerships. Interested? Contact us at teacherpartnerships@educationevolving.org.

What is a Teacher Professional Partnership? (pdf)

In most occupations we consider, ‘professional’ people do have the opportunity to work with partners in single- or multi-specialty groups they collectively own. But not in education. For heaven’s sake, why not? This is Chapter One from Teachers As Owners. Purchase the full book at Amazon.com.