A superintendent stands at a podium and clicks to the opening slide of the district’s new strategic plan. It reads “(insert your city) Children First” or “(insert your city) Preparing 21st Century Citizens” or “(insert your city) Achieves.” The slides lay out carefully crafted, well researched and thought-out plans to tackle the serious challenges facing school systems.
About two years ago, Teaching Matters decided to couple professional development focusing on teacher leadership with a micro-credentialing plan that identifies, coaches, and rewards the kind of digestible chunks of knowledge and competence that are especially worthwhile. We made it our business to target the highest leverage skills in a prioritized and integrated way so that demonstrating these competencies is meaningful and substantial - and they can be recognized as the essentials that characterize a well-prepared teacher leader.