Empowering Teachers

This book calls for moving teachers to the center of decision-making in public schools. It honors teaching and teachers by redefining the role in a democratically organized professional setting. While modern reform employs the language of school restructuring, genuine change that will enhance the status of teachers is not at the top of the agenda. This book recognizes that for authentic empowerment to materialize, the nature of the teaching role must significantly change. At the same time, teacher preparation will also have to be overhauled in order to equip teachers with all that a new status demands. It also proposes that the role of the principal must be dramatically transformed and recommends returning principals to the teaching function as part of their task and places them in greater accountability to the professional teaching staff itself. The book presents a hopeful message that is grounded in a progressive perspective our conservative epoch demands.