3) Teacher leadership is actually supported in ESSA.
For the first time, there are numerous references made to teacher leadership in ESEA, offering an opportunity for school systems to channel federal funds into teacher leadership and to think about staffing schools differently:
P. 319, lines 17-21: "providing training and support for teacher leaders and principals or other school leaders who are recruited as part of instructional leadership teams."
P. 333, lines 11-17: "A description of the local educational agency's systems of professional growth and improvement, such as induction for teachers, principals, or other school leaders and opportunities for building the capacity of teachers and opportunities to develop meaningful teacher leadership."
P. 350, lines 15-18: "successful fulfillment of additional responsibilities or job functions, such as teacher leadership roles"
P. 356-357, lines 21-25 and 1-3: "authority to make staffing decisions that meet the needs of the school, such as building an instructional leadership team that includes teacher leaders or offering opportunities for teams or pairs of effective teachers or candidates to teach or to start teaching in high-need schools together."
"So how will the Every Student Succeeds Act be different? "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme!" is a caution for us; we need to learn where we went wrong with NCLB and waivers. One key error was the development of well-intentioned policies without the benefit of practicing educators at the decision making table. National polling shows that only 2% of teachers feel their voices are heard at the national level. My colleague Justin Minkel calls it the "implementation gap" - the gulf between a policy's intended impact and its actual impact once it rolls out with real kids in real classrooms. When you don't have practicing educators assisting with the decision making, that gap is inevitable. ESSA provides new access points to teachers in three ways..."