The Leader Within

Reviews / Votes

The authors stress developing teacher leaders as an integral part of school and district improvement, rather than in isolation. With these strong teacher leaders, schools can harness the leadership at the classroom level to lead to student and organizational growth.... [T]his resource would be a great text in a graduate course or an in-district teacher leader growth program. * School Administrator * In the past few years, school accountability and improvement has become based more and more on measurable learning for students. In order to facilitate enhanced student learning, teacher leaders are needed to facilitate and maximize school wide effectiveness and achievement. In The Leader Within, Coquyt and Creasman provide background information, ideas and resources for principals and teachers to utilize for enhancing and growing teacher leadership in schools. If your school is just beginning to intentionally utilize teacher leadership or if you have a process in place, there are resources to meet your needs. The Teacher Leader Model Standards are presented in a format that is engaging, reflective, and will provide a template for growth and development of teacher leaders. -- Boyd L. Bradbury The last few years have witnessed increasing emphasis on accountability within our nation's schools. As a result, there has been a push to improve both the overall educational experience for students in the name of increased student achievement. Rather than rely solely on school administrators to lead the push for school improvement and increased achievement, Coquyt and Creasman (2015) advocate for teacher leadership. Within the context of Teacher Leader Model Standards, these authors provide an understandable and intentional teacher leadership framework through which teacher leadership can be introduced, mentored, and realized. -- Julie Swaggert, EdD, and Lisa Karch, PhD, Minnesota State University Moorhead Every school is involved in improving the quality of education for their students, but what we are doing is not working. More than 2.5 million students dropped out of high school in 2012. When you examine who makes school decisions, teachers are rarely involved in the decision making process. We need to change that. We need to begin to tap teacher expertise, provide teachers with leadership training, empower them, and eliminate the separated and disconnected silos of teachers and administrators. The Leader Within: Understanding and Empowering Teachers gives us hope, vision, and guidance to create a new model of teacher leadership, which has potential to restructure and revitalize our schools and increase the success of our students. -- Dr. Ron Dexter, director of Career and Technical Education in the College of Education at Concordia University - Portland; author; former associate superintendent for Career and Technical Education at the Oregon Department of Education As public education continues to become more complex, the role of the teacher leader will continue to grow. Essentially, schools that fail to empower teachers to be leaders or to grow a culture of teacher leadership will continue to struggle to meet the needs of students. This book not only provides valuable strategies to grow and empower teacher leaders, it also can strengthen the capacity of current teacher leaders in any school by using the Teacher Leader Model Standards. The authors provide an excellent resource for principals and teachers who are looking to grow a school culture focused on leadership and learning. -- Larry D. Coble, executive director of the Piedmont Triad Education Consortium; author; former teacher, assistant principal, and principal