ABOUT US

Our Story

Leading Educators partners with schools and districts to maximize the leadership development of highly effective teachers. Our goal is to bolster the talent pipeline via identifying and training strong potential teacher-leaders and, in turn, increase student achievement and develop the skills and sustainability of teachers on our teacher-leaders' teams.

The education sector is unfortunate in that, until Leading Educators, it has been without programs specifically designed to address middle management development. Therefore, even when teachers do stay in schools for more than the average of three years, they are often unprepared for the inevitable increased leadership responsibility that follows.

In 2008, Leading Educators and Teaching Leaders in the United Kingdom launched programs to better serve and develop mid-tier teacher-leaders. In the summer of 2011, Leading Educators emerged from a pilot phase, received independent 501c3 status, and began national expansion. Leading Educators’ theory of change is that by simultaneously retaining high-quality teacher-leaders and increasing their reach to drive student achievement, high need schools will be able to close the achievement gap. This theory is supported by research that demonstrates the impact of distributed leadership and collaboration on raising student achievement. (Harris and Chapman, 2002)

Leading Educators offers a two-year Fellowship program as well as series of customized Strategic Support Initiatives to schools and districts. All programs focus on developing the impact and reach of teacher-leaders in the core curricular areas of Instructional Leadership, Core Beliefs and Mindsets, Cultural Leadership, and Management of Self and Others. Participating educators learn how to leverage distributed leadership to more effectively execute goals within their sphere of school influence, to lead teams of educators to increase student achievement, and to improve school cultural environments to promote learning and aspiration.

Leading Educators aims to begin Fellowships and Strategic Support Initiatives in additional regions over the coming years, on the way to making a nationwide impact on teacher-leader development and student achievement.