Teacher Leadership in Professional Development Schools

Jana Hunzicker

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781787439238
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

This edited collection occupies a unique position as the first book to explore teacher leadership within the context of professional development schools (PDSs) and other school-university partnerships in the United States.In today's educational climate of data, differentiation, and accountability, teacher leadership is essential. Professional development schools and other school-university partnerships support teacher leader development by prioritizing teacher learning, modeling best practices, encouraging instructional innovations, and pursuing educational research and other scholarly work. Because PDSs and other school-university partnerships offer distinctive occasions for teachers to engage in leadership roles and responsibilities, a closer look at teacher leadership within these contexts provides a valuable opportunity for the instruction and inspiration of all educators.Written for aspiring teacher leaders as well as for those who teach, research, serve, supervise, and lead in PDSs and other school-university partnerships, Teacher Leadership in Professional Development Schools will immerse readers in deep exploration of teacher leadership across three broad areas: Teacher Leadership and Student Learning; Definitions, Structures, and Cultures that Promote Teacher Leadership; and Teacher Leader Preparation and Development. Following a thought-provoking foreword and two introductory chapters, each of the book's three sections features three to four research-based chapters, written by higher education faculty and practicing P-12 teachers and administrators; a scholarly synthesis chapter, written by a known expert in the field; and three to four teacher leader reflections, written by aspiring, developing, and veteran teacher leaders from across the United States.

Chapter 1

Professional Development Schools: An Overview and Brief History

Jana Hunzicker

Abstract

Professional development schools (PDSs) are a specific type of school–university partnership designed to support teacher preparation, professional development, inquiry and research, and student learning. Active teacher engagement in PDS work over the past three decades has led to the emergence of teacher leader practice and development as a serendipitous outcome of PDS partnerships. Emphasizing teacher leadership throughout, this chapter provides an overview of PDSs, including a definition and core purposes, benefits of continuous learning for all PDS stakeholders, and the complexities of PDS work before offering a brief history of PDS in the United States.

Keywords: Professional development schools; history of professional development schools; school–university partnerships; history of education in the United States; laboratory schools

Professional development schools (PDSs), a specific type of school–university partnership, were established in the 1990s to bolster the preparation of preservice teachers by placing them in authentic classroom settings from where they could learn with and from experienced classroom teachers (Rutter, 2006; Teitel, 1997). To support classroom teachers charged with mentorship and supervision, partnering colleges and universities provided professional development and other forms of support aimed at enhancing teaching and leadership of experienced teachers (Teitel, 1997). Shaped primarily to address school reform and increase teacher professionalization (Holmes Group, 1986, 1990), the parallel work of John Goodlad and the National Network for Educational Renewal (NNER) expanded the PDS vision to include teacher leadership (Neapolitan & Levine, 2011).

As it turned out, the Holmes Group’s (1986, 1990) core PDS purposes of teacher preparation, professional development, inquiry and research, and student learning have defined the PDS mission nationwide for the past three decades. Moreover, active teacher engagement in PDS work has led to the emergence of teacher leader practice and development as a serendipitous outcome of PDS partnerships (Cosenza, 2013; Teitel, 2004). Emphasizing teacher leadership throughout, this chapter provides an overview of PDSs, including a definition and core purposes, benefits of continuous learning for all PDS stakeholders, and the complexities of PDS work before offering a brief history of PDS in the United States.

Definition and Core Purposes of Professional Development Schools

Teitel (2004) described PDSs as “a cornerstone of serious attempts to simultaneously improve teacher education and public schools.” (p. 401). Carpenter and Sherretz (2012) wrote, “PDS partnerships support professional and student learning through the use of an inquiry-oriented approach to teaching.” (p. 89). While school–university partnerships admirably focus on teacher preparation and other “special projects or school directed community or business partnerships that only peripherally connect to the PDS,” (Rutter, 2006, p. 11). PDSs do even more. The “widely accepted cornerstones of the PDS initiative” (Field, 2014, p. 133) that distinguish PDSs from other school–university partnerships are teacher preparation, professional development, inquiry and research, and student learning (Ferrara, 2014; Neapolitan & Levine, 2011; Teitel, 2004). In the 2008 position article titled “What it Means to be a Professional Development School,” the National Association for Professional Development Schools (NAPDS) articulated the definition and core purposes of PDSs as follows:

Unique and particularly intense school–university collaborations, PDSs were designed to accomplish a four-fold agenda: preparing future educators, providing current educators with ongoing professional development, encouraging joint school–university faculty investigation of education-related issues, and promoting the learning of P-12 students. (p. 1)

From a broader perspective, PDSs exist to promote innovation and to create sustainable practices in the service of teacher preparation, professional development, inquiry and research, and student learning (Neapolitan & Levine, 2011). Toward these ends, collaborative partnerships between school and university are essential. Ferrara (2014) explained:

Understanding the teaching/learning cycle and the critical impact that teachers have on student success has been the mission of PDSs for almost two decades. This mission has helped professionals serving preK-12 students, as well as those preparing teacher candidates, recognize that working in isolation is no longer a viable solution to the complex problems of student learning and teacher quality. (p. 12)

Mutual sharing of human, informational, and fiscal resources also promotes innovation and supports the sustainability of PDS partnerships. Berkeley (2006) wrote, “The primary intent is for school partners and university partners to become resources of first resort to one another, contacting one another for a variety of reasons.” (p. 157).

Continuous Learning of all PDS Stakeholders

Through collaboration and sharing, PDSs offer mutual benefits to school and university. The greatest benefit is the opportunity to support continuous learning of all PDS stakeholders. Ferrara (2014) stated, “PDSs create environments where preservice teachers, practicing teachers, college faculty, and preK-12 students come together under one roof to engage the process of learning.” (p. 11). Through the ongoing process of learning via practice, professional development, and inquiry, school–university partners create a level playing field where reciprocal learning is valued (Miller, 2015; NAPDS, 2008). Hartzler-Miller (2006) wrote, “PDSs create the conditions for de-legitimizing traditional power structures by bringing university faculty into K-12 classrooms and teachers onto college campus [sic] as serious professionals, consultants, co-researchers, instructors, and leaders in their field.” (p. 171). Moreover, responsibility for learning is shared, creating opportunities for teachers to emerge as leaders. Carpenter and Sherretz (2012) elaborated:

Accountability for learning in PDS is no longer the sole responsibility of the principal. In a learning community, a teacher’s role expands from one’s classroom to the entire school…such a context empowers teachers; specifically, teachers begin to take on more responsibility to mentor or coach each other and advocate for their profession and students. (p. 98)

From a university perspective, PDS work is “a place in academia that ‘keeps it real’.” (Hartzler-Miller, 2006, p. 165). In PDS partnerships, P-12 teachers benefit from the theoretical knowledge provided by university faculty, and university faculty benefit from the practitioner knowledge of P-12 teachers.

Complexities of PDS Work

A recent concern about quality teacher preparation and increased accountability for teacher certification and licensure has created a renewed interest in PDSs (Howey, 2011). Yet even in ideal circumstances, PDS work is challenging. Berkeley (2006) described the “added-on complexities” of PDS leadership as “the rigorous demands of those at levels even higher than themselves – institutional leaders, community leaders, political leaders, and citizen leaders.” (p. 151). One such complexity is perpetual tension between innovation and standards. PDS work focused on innovation tends to be nonhierarchical, voluntary, internally controlled, and responsive to local conditions (Neapolitan & Levine, 2011). Such conditions foster creativity but may possibly lack substance and/or resources. However, PDS work focused on standards or other external parameters, such as a grant, which may be limited to specific initiatives, groups, or activities or distract PDSs from their mission (Miller, 2015). Teitel (2004) elaborated:

When PDS becomes “just another thing” required by the people higher up, the opportunities for PDSs to transform and improve schools and teacher education institutions are lost. Leadership and participants at all levels – at the PDS, state, or municipal levels – need to consciously address ways to retain the underlying vision and vitality of PDS. (p. 404)

A second complexity is the provisional status of many PDSs, which often results from limited institutional support. Neapolitan and Levine (2011) explained:

With few exceptions, the PDS has…not been able to make the changes in the basic structure, financing, roles, and relationships of the partners involved, and therefore have not been institutionalized…Primarily driven by universities, they have been unevenly implemented. Few districts, again with some exceptions, have made the basic commitment necessary to sustaining them. (p. 320)

Institutional supports such as time, funding, and recognition for participation in PDS efforts are necessary to sustain PDSs indefinitely (Ferrara, 2014; Field, 2014). In addition, state funding, governance, and accountability systems are needed to sustain widespread PDS work (Neapolitan & Levine, 2011).

A third complexity faced by today’s PDSs is low advocacy. Field (2014) identified several “things that PDS practitioners currently are not doing very well,” (p. 138) including the need to clarify the mission of PDS work, pursuing the PDS mission in day-to-day efforts, and advocating for PDSs “with measureable data demonstrating the impact of PDS collaborations.” (pp. 138–139). Yet the empirical research base on PDSs remains thin. Ferrara (2014) stated:

Historically, PDSs examine those factors that affect student learning, such as teacher effectiveness, implementation of research-based practices, or ways in which schools transform as a result of partnership work. However, a clear link between these inputs and student achievement has not been made in most PDS settings. (p. 21)

Hartzler-Miller (2006) concurred, “Without solid conceptual frameworks for interpreting, explaining, and visioning PDS work, our PDS partnerships are like houses made of straw, vulnerable to constant shifts in political winds.” (p. 165).

A fourth and final complexity of PDS work is staying true to the fourfold PDS mission. Miller (2015) identified mission creep as “the biggest threat to school–university partnerships,” (p. 28) since it hinders the conditions that support teacher lea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Chapter 1. Professional Development Schools: An Overview and Brief History
• Chapter 2. Teacher Leadership in Professional Development Schools: A Definition, Brief History, and Call for Further Study
• Section I. Teacher Leadership and Student Learning
• Section II. Definitions, Structures, and Cultures that Promote Teacher Leadership
• Section III. Teacher Leader Preparation and Development
• More Questions for Reflection and Discussion
• Tables, Illustrations, and Figures
• About the Contributors
• Index