Susan Moore Johnson

At a time when the Obama administration is focusing attention — and funding — on ways to improve teacher quality, it's more crucial than ever for teachers and their unions to take the lead and take risks.

"Reform must be done with us, not to us," NYSUT Vice President Maria Neira urged a group of Capital Region teacher union leaders.

"It's time for us to have courageous conversations and take control of our profession," she said.

Aside from the millions available through the federal stimulus funding, New York state education officials hope to win some of an estimated $5 billion in federal "Race to the Top" innovation grants.

Neira also urged local leaders to take a look at grants of up to $200,000 available through the American Federation of Teachers Innovation Fund to improve teacher quality and student achievement.

"It's an important time for unions to figure out how teachers can become a part of this incredible (reform) movement," said Harvard University researcher Susan Moore Johnson. "If not, will we revert to much more top-down reform?"

Johnson, a nationally recognized researcher, was featured at a regional meeting co-sponsored earlier this month by NYSUT and the Greater Capital Region Teacher Center. She explained how teacher leadership can provide professional support for a new generation of teachers.

"Today's teachers don't want to work in "egg crate" schools or in the isolation of their classroom," she said. "Educators today want a more collaborative or team approach." Johnson noted 40 percent of today's teachers have worked in another profession and now view their work through a more corporate model.

Perhaps the education profession might look to the health system model, where the nursing profession has a much broader hierarchy and specialized leadership roles, Johnson said. What if a school was set up more like a hospital? she asked. "The kids are like patients and need lots of different services and specialists."

Moving beyond the "egg crate" mentality will mean integrating teachers into leadership roles — providing peer assistance, induction support and other professional development activities.

"These programs pay for themselves through teacher retention," Johnson said. "As for peer assistance, all you have to do is avoid two or three dismissal arbitrations and you've saved money."

Supporting leadership can also take other forms, she said, such as providing stipends for master teachers to coach colleagues and National Board Certified teachers to serve in hard-to-staff schools.

Many highly effective teachers don't want to leave the classroom — but have a great deal to offer in leadership, Johnson noted.

"We need to move beyond the culture of egalitarianism and offer more than a career ladder," she said. "We're talking about a career lattice."

In a panel discussion local presidents and teacher leaders from Troy, Albany and Burnt Hill-Ballston Lake shared ways they have successfully negotiated leadership roles for teachers.

Albany, for example, has negotiated stipends and release time for mentor-teachers, building-level curriculum leaders and teacher-driven data teams.

"With teachers helping to lead the data team, data is used to grow and learn — not punish," said Albany TA's mentor coordinator, Rita Floess. "And it's empowering for our staff to learn how to interpret it."

Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake teacher leaders have thrived under a true shared decision-making culture, with a powerful School Council that weighs everything from implementing a new elementary report card system to how response to intervention will work.

"It's not utopia, but the shared decision-making culture has become a safeguard," said Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake TA President Rocco Montesano.

Troy TA seized the opportunity —when the district eliminated middle-management curriculum supervisors — to create 15 curriculum leader positions for experienced teachers.

"I viewed it as a way to help my colleagues facilitate learning for all students, yet stay in the classroom," said Troy science curriculum leader John Getbehead. "I chose many years ago not to be an administrator. I'm a teacher — that's my love ... So this can be the best of both worlds."