The promise, rise and fall of the Florida Teacher Leader Fellowship Programme

ABSTRACT

This paper explores a teacher leadership development programme initiated by a university-based educational innovation centre that convened 40 teacher leaders from 22 different school districts across Florida for an 18-month voluntary professional learning experience. Underpinning this initiative was a theory of teacher leadership development aimed at developing a culture of professional learning at individual teacher, school and district level. It was designed to challenge, at both school and district level, a perceived ambivalence among senior leadership to teacher led-initiatives aimed at enhancing the professional knowledge and skill of their colleagues. Findings indicate that participation in a university-sponsored programme, as well as developing collaboration among teachers, served to promote a commitment to teacher-led leadership. Further, the researchers identified specific strategies which would encourage Fellows to explore new areas of learning. This also entailed confronting obstacles and disincentives employed by teaching colleagues and senior leaders at both school and district level. This article explores not only the conditions and practices that shaped the programme but also the larger contextual factors that determine when, how, and if teacher leaders are able to exercise leadership.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher leader
• teacher leader fellow
• teacher-led leadership
• teacher leadership
• leadership development
• professional learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alex Alexandrou

Alex Alexandrou is a freelance academic and has gained considerable experience in developing and evaluating educational leadership and professional development programmes. He has been observing and researching the development of teacher leadership for more than a decade as part of an ongoing project investigating teacher leadership in alternative contexts.

John MacBeath

John MacBeath is Professor Emeritus at the University of Cambridge and Director of Leadership for Learning: the Cambridge Network. He has acted in a consultancy role to the OECD, UNESCO, European Commission and the Prince’s Trust. He was awarded the OBE for services to education in 1997.

Philip Poekert

Philip Poekert is the Director of the Lastinger Centre for Learning at the University of Florida. His work centres on the development and evaluation of job-embedded professional development and graduate education programmes focussed on teacher leadership as well as other innovations to improve teacher quality.

Louie Alexandrou

Louie Alexandrou is a student at Linslade Academy and is interested in the impact of teacher leadership on student learning and outcomes.