Through two decades of research, we have learned that our most effective teachers exhibit characteristics that define great leaders in any context. This knowledge is the basis of the Teaching As Leadership framework, the foundation for how we train and support corps members.

Teaching As Leadership

The  Teaching As Leadership framework includes six leadership principles based on the actions of our most effective teachers:
 

Set Ambitious Goals for Student Achievement
Teachers who succeed in leading students in low-income areas to two to four years’ worth of academic progress in a single year set ambitious, measurable goals for where they want their students to be academically at the end of the year. These big goals, when aligned with established learning standards and coupled with effective investment strategies, energize both teachers and students with the motivation and focus they will need to overcome the inevitable obstacles on the path to academic achievement.
 

Meg Stewart (Bay Area Corps ’08) rallies her students around the idea that they are going to double their learning this year, demonstrating at least two years of reading growth and 80 percent mastery of rigorous math standards.

Invest Students and Families in Working Hard to Achieve the Goals
Successful classroom leaders break the cycle of self-fulfilling low expectations that often characterizes their students’ sense of self-worth and perspective on school. These teachers change students’ belief that intelligence is a fixed characteristic and show them that if they work hard enough, they will “get smart.” They maintain high expectations for their students at all times, while still meeting them where they are academically to ensure their students can succeed.

Julia King (Chicago Corps ’08) calls and texts parents throughout the day with updates on their children. As one father says, “She makes me feel like I’m in class with my daughter!” Each week Julia sends home student work with Post-Its for parents to make comments on; when they’re returned to her, she laminates the comments and puts them on the wall to keep her students proud and motivated.

Plan Purposefully to Achieve the Vision of Student Success
To succeed in the challenging environments where the achievement gap is most prevalent, teachers backwards-plan and begin every endeavor -- from individual lessons to year-long calendars -- with the key questions, “Where are my students now versus where I want them to be?” and “What is the best possible use of time to move them forward?” Highly successful teachers infuse their goal-driven efficiency into every aspect of instruction and classroom management.

Before the year began, Julia King (Chicago Corps ’08) organized learning objectives into units and ordered them logically across the year so that the skills built on each other and the school’s calendar was taken into account. For each week’s unit plan, Julia looked at the objectives for that unit, then wrote five assessment questions per objective, and only then planned her lessons.

Execute Plans with Judgment and Adjustments
Strong classroom leaders are effective executors, making good judgments about when to follow through on their plans and when to adjust them in light of incoming data. They offer their students consistent, caring, demanding leadership, and constantly seek to maximize the time students have to work hard toward their goals.

According to Megan Brousseau’s (New York Corps ’08) program director: “From the handshake greeting at the door when you first enter the room to the high five you receive on the way out, Megan is consistent and clear with her rules, procedures, and lessons. Her kids know what to expect from her and are excited on a daily basis by what she has in store for them that day. She puts 110 percent into every lesson she teaches and her students have grown to love science as equally as she does.”

Continuously Increase Effectiveness to Accelerate Student Learning
Strong leaders are their own toughest critics, constantly seeking ways to improve their skills. Our most successful corps members use data to reflect and improve on their teaching and to ensure that they maximize their impact.

Meg Stewart (Bay Area Corps ’08) routinely videotapes her morning classes and reviews the footage that day, critiquing her instruction and tweaking lesson plans for the afternoon.

Work Relentlessly to Navigate Challenges
In many low-income communities, schools with the least capacity serve children with the greatest need. To make significant academic progress with students, highly effective teachers go above and beyond the traditional role of “teacher” and do whatever it takes to lead their students to academic success. Our successful corps members refuse to allow the inevitable challenges that they face to become roadblocks. Instead, they see these as obstacles to be overcome on their path to achieving ambitious goals.

Because he is veritably obsessed with his students’ college trajectory, Maurice Thomas (Atlanta Corps ’08) has made it his personal mission to do everything humanly possible to help them get on this path. He offers tutoring during lunch hour and after school every day except for Tuesday, which is reserved for faculty conferences. Maurice also runs a Saturday school from 8 a.m. until noon.