Start-up Resources for a School with Teacher Autonomy

FEATURED START-UP RESOURCE:

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.

Building on what’s been learned from existing TPPs and having documented rising demand, Education|Evolving and our partners now provide six support services, including: cultivating the policy environment, education and advocacy, union and district relationships, instructional program design, corporate structure and formation, and organizational management support.

Interested? Contact teacherpartnerships@educationevolving.org.

Teachers As Owners at Amazon.com

This book is partly a start-up guide and partly an introduction to the broad implications for public education and the teaching profession. Discussions cover key ingredients for success, potential clients, comparison of legal structures for doing business, options for private retirement plans, outline for a business plan, and more.

Inventory of schools with teacher autonomy

Browse all schools with teacher autonomy, nationwide — either in a list form or on a map. And, see our definition of what constitutes “teacher autonomy,” and the various arrangements with states, districts and unions which allow for this autonomy.

Worker Democracy and Worker Productivity

When “workers” are involved in making decisions about their workplaces, their productivity can increase. This article examines the empirical support for this argument over a wide range of types of organizations.

Start-up links

This small collection of links may get your wheels turning, but is in no way exhaustive. In fact, teacher professional partnerships can be many types of organization (not just cooperatives) and can serve any kind of school (not just chartered schools). Since most existing TPPs serve chartered schools and are organized as worker cooperatives, Education|Evolving is aware of resources that have been valuable to these groups. We provide these resources knowing that some TPPs will be LLCs or partnerships (a form of business, like a cooperative or LLC). We also know that some will serve whole district schools, magnet schools, home schools, and others. And some will serve departments of schools. Please don’t let these links restrict your imagination and planning.

As you form your TPP and make decisions about how to organize, it is in your best interest to find state and local contacts who will be familiar with business law as well as education policy and politics in your area. Some of these links will help you locate state and local folks, but again you will benefit from doing your own networking to find just the right match for you. Teachers in professional partnerships report that you might not find the right contacts on your first try. You’ll need to work to find people who will understand the concept and philosophically support you. If you come across an organization or resource that should be linked here, or if you are seeking ideas about how to locate appropriate contacts, please contact us.