Toward the Structural Transformation of Schools: Innovations in Staffing

American education is undergoing considerable change from improvements in information technology to increased efforts to tie teacher performance to student achievement. Toward the Structural Transformation of Schools: Innovations in Staffing is a thought paper which proposes steps to embrace that change, primarily through fundamentally reconsidering the teacher’s role in education.

The heart of this reconsideration is “neo-differentiated staffing,” a practice which unpacks and reassigns the many jobs of a teacher. Asserting that though “the concept of a ‘generalist’ has been abolished from almost every profession that strongly impacts society … teachers are still expected to wear an inordinate number of hats,” the paper proposes that once the teacher’s myriad roles are isolated, educators can focus on their strengths and function with greater effectiveness as teams. The paper also addresses the relatively static nature of the teaching profession and proposes an organizational model that allows teachers to develop new skills and take on greater leadership responsibility as they advance in their careers.