ASSET
Retaining high quality teachers is one of the most challenging teaching quality issues faced by public schools. In 2005, Wake Education Partnership and the Wake Leadership Academy, in collaboration with the Center for Teaching Quality and the Education Foundation for the Orange County Schools, created ASSET (Achieving Student Success Through Empowering Teachers). This initiative, funded by a grant from the Wachovia Foundation, is designed to improve teacher retention and, ultimately, student achievement through the implementation of new models of distributed leadership.
Research shows that leadership matters to teacher retention. The 2005 North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions survey demonstrated that a collegial environment led by a principal with a strong focus on instruction mattered most in teachers’ decisions about whether to stay in the school in which they worked.
Six middle schools in Wake and Orange counties have been selected to begin a multi-year process to effect change in their leadership practices and decision-making processes.
In the 2005-06 school year, the ASSET collaborative will work to:
- Assess the leadership structures in each school and gauge teacher interest in new and diverse roles;
- Examine existing school improvement plans to identify gaps in the knowledge and skills needed to accomplish the school’s goals;
- Provide a range of resources to support the development of distributed leadership practices – including professional development, planning and technical assistance, and substitute funds to allow full teacher participation; and
- Foster cross-site learning about best practices.