Successful external partners act as staff advocates and buffers who reduce teacher vulnerability¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

This strategy holds that external partner organizations support school change by protecting staff rather than only providing technical support. Payne writes that "some of the most successful external partners have reduced vulnerability of staff because they become staff advocates, buffers between them and the powers that be," noting authoritarian principals cannot bully external partners as they bully teachers or parents. Facilitation at its best can also re-moralize schools toward professional and humane values.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Partners must be present and credible enough that an authoritarian principal cannot treat them as he or she treats teachers or parents.

Constraints¶

• Being a facilitator in a bottom-tier Chicago school can be an emotional hell, and facilitator training typically does not prepare people for racial conflict.

Target Learners¶

• teachers and staff in demoralized urban schools

Target Learning Goals¶

• creating conditions for trust and open professional conversation so reform can take root

Related Strategies¶

• Provide external partners with adequate, sustained financial resources proportionate to their school-improvement scope

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Payne, Charles. (2005). Still Crazy after All These Years: Race in the Chicago School System. Consortium on Chicago School Research, University of Illinois at Chicago. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/still-crazy-after-all-these-years-race-chicago-school-system