Look At Their Roles In Governance

Our challenge is clear: Instead of relegating teachers to the role of production workers—with no say in org a n i z i n g their schools for excellence— we need to enlist teachers as full partners, indeed, as co-managers of their schools. Instead of contracts that reduce flexibility and restrict change, we—and our schools— need contracts that empower and enable. This new collaboration is not about sleeping with the enemy. It is about waking up to our shared stake in reinvigorating the public education enterprise. It is about educating children b e t t e r, more eff e c t i v e l y, more ambitiously.1