A New Professionalism for Massachusetts Teachers: Six Constituencies at Work

Abstract

The movement for school improvement based on common academic standards for all students cannot succeed, the author argues, without raising teachers to a new level of professionalism that equips them not only for effective teaching to higher standards in the classroom but for active public leadership of statewide school reform efforts. In turn, such professionalism will be possible only when six different constituencies put an end to their relative isolation and come together, to educate each other to the changes needed and to collaborate in bringing them about: teachers themselves; education school deans and faculties; chairs and members of university arts and sciences departments; local school administrators and school committee members; state departments of education; and lay members of state education and university governing boards.