Teacher Leadership as a Catalyst for School Change
This paper reviews Ankrum's (2016) article "Utilizing Teacher Leadership as a Catalyst for Change in Schools," which argues that teachers are an underused resource for driving meaningful school improvement. Grounded in distributed leadership theory, the article challenges passive views of teachers and advocates for their active involvement in change processes through both formal and informal leadership roles. The reviewer affirms these findings through experience in special education settings, where professional collaboration and individualized attention are especially critical. The review also raises a key concern: the absence of discussion around compensating teachers for the additional time and responsibilities that expanded leadership roles demand.
- Introduction to Distributed Teacher Leadership: Overview of Ankrum's thesis and distributed leadership theory
- Survey Findings and Teacher Roles in School Change: Survey methodology, results, and professional development findings
- Implications for Special Education Settings: Reviewer applies findings to emotional and behavioral disorder classrooms
- Concerns About Teacher Workload and Compensation: Critique of article's omission of teacher compensation issues
- Conclusion and Recommendations: Call for teacher input in structuring leadership roles
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What makes this paper effective
- The reviewer moves fluidly from summarizing the source article to critically evaluating it, demonstrating both comprehension and analytical thinking.
- Personal professional experience in special education is used to ground and extend the article's claims with real-world validity, adding depth beyond simple summary.
- The critique around teacher compensation is specific, well-reasoned, and identifies a genuine gap in the original study — a sign of mature critical engagement.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper effectively models the critical article review format: it summarizes the source's key claims and methodology, applies its own professional lens to evaluate those claims, and then identifies a substantive limitation. This balanced approach — affirm, contextualize, critique — is a core academic skill at the undergraduate level.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a concise summary of Ankrum's thesis and theoretical grounding (distributed leadership). It then describes the study's survey methodology and findings. The third section connects the findings to the author's special education context. The fourth section introduces the central critique regarding teacher workload and compensation. The conclusion calls for more teacher-driven input into how leadership roles are structured and integrated into working hours.
Introduction to Distributed Teacher Leadership
According to Ankrum (2016) in his article "Utilizing Teacher Leadership as a Catalyst for Change in Schools," teachers are an often-underused resource for schools seeking to institute meaningful changes and to provide critical data to educational administrators in support of new initiatives. Rather than viewing teachers as passive followers, they should be viewed as active participants in the change process. The article is founded upon a concept known as distributed leadership — as opposed to charismatic or visionary leadership — which suggests that leadership is best distributed throughout an organization in different ways for it to function effectively. Given the individualized nature of instruction and the fact that teachers already function in many ways as de facto leaders in their classrooms, this would seem like an appropriate paradigm.
Survey Findings and Teacher Roles in School Change
Teacher leadership, the article notes, can take both formal and informal roles. Teachers as a whole are already more apt than other types of employees to take on leadership in occupational settings and to go above and beyond their job descriptions to help students. The article also highlights the value of teacher collaboration in offering different strategies to support struggling students.
A quantitative survey conducted by Ankrum (2016) of 175 leaders attending the Teachers College Summer Principals Academy (SPA) and the cohort from the National Superintendent Academy (NSA) identified teachers as catalysts for school change and characterized them as significant contributors to the change process. Professional development was also flagged as critical to fostering school improvement.
Implications for Special Education Settings
As an instructor working in a school setting for children with emotional and behavioral disorders, I believe the results of the survey carry additional validity, given the special needs of students experiencing significant challenges. In such instances, students often struggle with completing tasks of everyday life, and regardless of their formal job descriptions, teachers must fill in the gaps to ensure that students are willing and able to learn.
Additionally, parents often lack critical coping mechanisms for dealing with their children, and teachers may need to act as educators of parents as well as of students themselves. Finally, because students can present a wide spectrum of functionality and emotional difficulties, individualized attention is essential. This makes professional collaboration even more important, as teachers must continually learn from one another. Teachers can also offer emotional support to their fellow educators, since instructing emotionally challenged students can be deeply stressful from the instructor's perspective.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Overall, the study performed by Ankrum (2016) is valuable. But it is only the beginning. Teachers need to provide input as to how their contributions will be solicited, and they should help develop feasible strategies for integrating that contribution into their workdays — without forcing them to perform even more work above and beyond the call of duty.
References
Ankrum, R. (2016). Utilizing teacher leadership as a catalyst for change in schools. Journal of Educational Issues, 2(1), 151–165.
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