Angling for Access, Bartering For Change: How Second-Stage Teachers Experience Differentiated Roles In Schools

Conclusions/Recommendations: These findings suggest that instructional reform built on such roles should be designed and implemented with more consideration of the power and persistence of teaching�s traditional norms. In this way, these roles might better promote whole-school instructional change and provide appealing career opportunities that retain teachers.

INTRODUCTION

Two decades ago, the Task Force on Teaching as a Profession issued a landmark report contending that the nation could not achieve an “educational renaissance” unless teachers became key players: “Without a profession possessed of high skills, capabilities, and aspirations, any reforms will be short lived” (Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, 1986:2). Subsequently, reformers sought to elevate teachers’ skills and place them in positions of greater authority and responsibility.

In the 1980s, some school districts created career ladders that included higher rungs for “master” or “lead” teachers. By differentiating the teaching staff on the basis of knowledge and expertise, career ladders were intended to create incentives for improved performance by all teachers. With few exceptions, however, such efforts were temporary, failing for a variety of reasons. The criteria for selecting expert teachers were often vague and decisions generated controversy about whether those selected were deserving. Districts seldom defined the responsibilities for the lead or master teachers, thus squandering the potential for leadership that career ladders offered. Rather than providing incentives for all teachers, the opportunities for advancement proved to be attractive to only a few. Funding was usually short-term and programs that led to dissension or disdain ended when the money ran out.

But the problems with career ladders ran deeper than structure and funding, for there also was evidence that teachers resisted career ladders because they violated a deeply rooted professional norm of egalitarianism. The hierarchy introduced by the ladder’s steps signaled clearly that some teachers were more equal than others (Hart, 1994; Rosenholtz, 1987). As Little observed, advocates had “largely underestimated the magnitude of the change their proposals represent” (1988, p. 83).

During the 1990s, reforms focused primarily on teachers’ work within professional communities where hierarchy was downplayed (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001, Westheimer, 1998). Leadership was said to be fluid and could be exercised by many teachers. Researchers documented the importance of collaborative work in professional communities to advance the school-wide reform agenda (Louis, Marks, & Kruse 1996.). Some teachers assumed “expanded roles” (Bartlett, 2004; Little, 1990), which took them out of the classroom. For the most part, however, these roles cautiously protected the established culture of teaching, where equal status and autonomy for all teachers continued to be quietly, though fiercely, guarded.

Since 2000, the standards and accountability movement, accelerated by the formal and informal sanctions of No Child Left Behind (2001), has introduced new demands for teacher leadership. The creation of these teacher leadership positions is driven less by beliefs about teachers’ interest in expanded career options than by the urgent need for expertise to expand instructional capacity within schools. School officials seeking to substantially increase students’ performance on annual assessments have appointed teachers to serve as instructional coaches, curriculum writers, professional developers, and data analysts . Such assignments challenge the assumption that all teachers are equal and entitled to decide what and how to teach. In this new environment, the classroom is no longer inviolate and the teacher’s autonomy is no longer sacrosanct. Further, as the composition of the teaching force changes and new teachers rapidly replace veterans, individuals with only a few years of experience may increasingly be designated as teacher leaders in schools where seniority has long held sway. Thus, these changes introduce a triple threat to the traditional norms of the profession—egalitarianism, autonomy, and seniority.  

WHEN ROLES AND NORMS OF TEACHING COLLIDE

For years, teachers have performed similar tasks, been granted equal status, and earned standardized pay (Lortie, 1975; Smylie, 1992). The longstanding norm of egalitarianism holds that all teachers deserve the same status and recognition, and that compensation should be based on a standardized salary scale that rewards longevity, but not teacher performance or effectiveness. In 1975, Lortie observed “the formal standing of teachers tends towards equality” (p. 102) and, as such, teachers resist those among them who “put on airs” and presume to have greater expertise than their colleagues (p. 194). Firmly rooted in the culture of teaching, the norm of egalitarianism has persisted over time (Johnson, 1990; Mangin, 2005), impeding the development of differentiated roles. Little observes: “To talk in terms of teacher leadership is to introduce status differences based on knowledge, skill, and initiative in a profession that has made no provision for them” (1988, p. 98).

Teachers have tolerated differentiation within their ranks but, for the most part, only when it was based on tenure. In virtually all school districts, veteran teachers have earned more as a result of their longevity within the district, and senior teachers typically have received “informal benefits,” such as input regarding which students or courses they teach and which classrooms are theirs (Lortie, 1975, p. 84). The norm of seniority has made early-career teacher leaders especially hesitant to provide feedback to their colleagues (Little, 1988).

A third norm—autonomy—is also deeply embedded in the teaching profession. It “protects individual teachers against unsolicited interventions” by administrators and colleagues and helps to preserve teachers’ right to choose what and how to teach (Lortie, 1975, p. 195). Traditionally, it is understood that the teacher who invites a colleague to assist her may reject her colleague’s advice. Indeed, Little found that teacher leaders “display a caution towards their colleagues that is both poignant and eminently sensible. The relation with other teachers that is implied by terms like mentor, advisor, or specialist has little place in the ordinary workings of most schools” (1988, p. 84). Little’s research led her to conclude that “overall, teachers more readily gave their approval to those options that acknowledged a master teacher’s skills and talents,” but which did not entail master teachers asserting authority over their colleagues (Little, 1988 p. 96). This suggests that teachers might tolerate affronts to egalitarianism and seniority, but not autonomy.

Collectively the norms of egalitarianism, seniority, and autonomy have impeded the establishment of roles that label certain teachers as more accomplished than others, that appoint them to leadership positions without regard to seniority, and that grant them a say in colleagues’ classroom practice. Mangin’s recent research suggests that teacher leaders continue to meet resistance from colleagues and, in some cases, work strategically to reduce that resistance (2005).

Our study was designed to explore how, within the current context of accountability, recently appointed teacher leaders experience a range of roles. We have focused on the experiences of teacher leaders in the second stage of their career (approximately years 3–10) for several reasons. There is evidence that the generation of teachers being hired in the last ten years may hold assumptions and expectations that differ from those of veteran colleagues and may challenge long-held professional norms (Johnson and the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, 2004). New and second-stage teachers today may not assume that all teachers are equal, that they are entitled to decide on their own what and how to teach, or that they should defer to more experienced colleagues.

Moreover, many teachers expect that their career in teaching should include varied responsibilities and expanded influence . Although researchers in the 1980s found that most teachers wanted to remain in the classroom for the duration of their career (McLaughlin & Yee, 1988), recent research suggests that today’s new and second-stage teachers have an interest in roles that take them outside of the classroom where they will have greater influence on students, colleagues, and schools (Peske et al., 2001; Henke, Xianglei, & Geis, 2000). There is some evidence that, without such opportunities, these recent recruits to teaching may leave the classroom altogether (Peske et al., 2001; Donaldson, 2005). Although the differentiated roles that are gaining prominence in today’s schools may not have been created to expand career opportunities for teachers, in effect, they may do so. They hold the potential not only to increase the instructional capacity of schools, but also to enhance second-stage teachers’ satisfaction and promote their retention.

In order to explore the experience of teachers in these roles, we interviewed 20 second-stage teachers, all of whom had assumed positions that were compensated with time or money and took them outside the classroom for at least part of their day. We found that teachers reported experiencing these roles differently depending on what they were supposed to achieve. Those who performed roles that were intended to change their colleagues’ classroom practice—which we refer to as “reform roles”—encountered stressful resistance from their colleagues. By contrast, those who performed roles that were intended to support but not change their colleagues’ classroom practice—which we call “non-reform roles”—did not struggle with disgruntled colleagues, and generally found their work rewarding.

Our analysis suggests that reform roles held by second-stage teachers sparked resistance because they challenged three traditional norms of the profession—autonomy, egalitarianism, and seniority. By contrast, non-reform roles were less controversial because they did not threaten to compromise the autonomy of colleagues, even though they did violate both the norm of egalitarianism by differentially rewarding the chosen teacher, and the norm of seniority by signaling that a second-stage teacher was more deserving than a veteran colleague. Ultimately, we found that teachers in reform roles performed their work strategically to avoid or minimize conflict. In doing so, they implicitly though inadvertently reinforced the very norms that limited their ability to do their work. Our findings suggest that the traditional norms of teaching—particularly that of autonomy—remain potent, and that current reformers and school leaders who seek to increase the instructional capacity of their schools must take that into account when they design and introduce differentiated roles for teachers.

METHODOLOGY

This exploratory study was conducted with a purposive sample of 20 teachers, all of whom had been teaching for between 3 and 10 years and held differentiated roles in their schools or districts. We identified potential candidates for our sample through the professional networks of the members of our research team. We sought teachers who were working in several metropolitan areas and in a range of school settings: urban and suburban; traditional and charter; elementary, middle, and high schools. We also sought variation with respect to individuals’ gender and race and selected respondents who entered teaching at different points in their career. Our earlier work (Johnson et al., 2004) suggested that there were potentially important differences between teachers who entered the classroom soon after college (first-career entrants) and those who had worked first in another field for a substantial period of time (mid-career entrants). Thus, the second-stage teachers in our sample ranged from 28 to 50 years old.

We also sought variation in the types of roles these teachers held, but limited our sample to those holding formal rather than informal positions, that were compensated by time or money, and promised to be ongoing rather than temporary. In recruiting participants, we made no distinction between whether their roles were intended to change teachers’ practice or not; these differences between reform and non-reform roles emerged during data analysis. We have, however, included that distinction along with other information about the participants and their roles in Table 1.

Table 1. Demographic and Role-related Information on the 20 Study Participants

Between March 2004 and January 2005, each teacher participated in an hour-long, semi-structured interview conducted by a member of our research team. Researchers used an interview protocol designed to address the broad question, “How do second-stage teachers who assume differentiated roles experience these roles?” The protocol was comprised of questions that asked about the participant’s general experience in the role, including her reasons for taking the role, perceptions of support by colleagues and administrators for the work of the role, and the benefits and challenges presented by the role. (See Appendix A for interview protocol.) Seventeen of the twenty interviews were conducted in person; three were conducted by phone. All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim.

The research team created thematic summaries soon after conducting each interview. From these, we identified emergent themes, which we examined further through analytic memos. Upon receipt of the transcripts, we revisited the themes we had identified and refined, and added to them based on our close analysis of the transcripts. Using Atlas qualitative analysis software, we coded the transcripts based on the enhanced list of emergent themes. One major theme that arose was the importance of colleagues in our participants’ experiences and we subsequently focused on that for this article. From the coded data, we created matrices to aid cross-case analysis and theory-building. Throughout, we engaged in an iterative process that included writing analytic memos, building and revising theories, and returning to the data to reject, verify, and refine our understanding of participants' experiences.

Because this study is based on a small, purposive sample and does not include a comparison group, our findings cannot be generalized to a larger population and we can make no causal claims. Rather, we use the findings to better understand how this sample of second-stage teachers who held differentiated roles interacted with their colleagues. Given the paucity of research on both second-stage teachers and the implementation of differentiated roles, qualitative examination provides a necessary first step in building an understanding of these experiences. In addition, interpretations reported here are based solely on participants’ self-reports and, thus, cannot be assumed to objectively represent how these roles played out in practice. Our research design did not permit us to confirm our participants’ interpretations, for example, by asking their colleagues how they responded to the participants’ enactment of their role. However, because we are primarily interested here in the second-stage teachers’ experience in their roles, self-reports are not only appropriate, but vital, forms of data.

FINDINGS

In the discussion that follows, we present our findings by first describing the two types of roles that we identified in the data: those designed to change colleagues’ practice, which sparked their resistance, and those that supported, but did not intervene in colleagues’ practice and, therefore, did not prompt opposition. We examine how colleagues seemed to resist roles that threatened teaching’s traditional norms of autonomy, egalitarianism, and seniority. We explore how these participants anticipated that their colleagues would resist their efforts to change practice and how they sought to reduce this resistance. Thus, we conclude that not only the colleagues but also the teachers in these roles acted in ways that reinforced traditional autonomy in the classroom, uniformity in rank and reward, and recognition based only on longevity. Finally, we consider how themes that emerge from this analysis can inform policy, practice, and future research.

How reform and non-reform roles differed

In our sample, teachers held reform roles, which sought to change how and what their colleagues taught, and non-reform roles, which did not have such a mandate. Reform roles in our sample ranged from elementary literacy coach and math reform leader to high school diversity coordinator. Non-reform roles included union vice president, cooperating teacher, and special education coordinator.

Only teachers with reform roles reported encountering resistance from colleagues. The accounts of these teachers suggest that their colleagues resisted their work because of what it represented to them: 1) an inappropriate intrusion into their instructional space, 2) an implicit claim that the second-stage teacher was more expert than they, and 3) an unwarranted promotion of a relative novice.

On their surface reform roles differed from non-reform roles in that they required second-stage teachers to tell their colleagues what and how to teach, thus violating the boundaries that protected colleagues’ autonomy. Yet in listening to participants’ accounts, we noted that colleagues were said to oppose reform roles not only because the second-stage teachers crossed the boundaries of autonomy, but also because appointment to these roles challenged the assumption that all teachers are equal and that senior colleagues deserve recognition over junior teachers. Thus, although both reform and non-reform roles violated expectations that all teachers would be treated equally, only reform roles singled out teachers on the basis of their classroom practice, positioning them as experts in the core work of teaching.

Similarly, the second-stage teachers’ appointment to roles violated the norm of seniority because these individuals had spent no more than a decade in the teaching profession, far less than many of their colleagues. However, it was primarily when colleagues challenged the participants’ judgment and advice about classroom matters that the colleagues blamed the problem on the participants’ inexperience. When reform roles infringed on colleagues’ classroom autonomy they also seemed to trigger complaints and resistance based on egalitarianism and seniority. Because carrying out non-reform roles did not impinge on colleagues’ classroom autonomy, there were few objections to relatively inexperienced teachers being given this authority and special recognition.

Colleagues’ resistance: Autonomy, egalitarianism, and seniority

Teachers who held reform roles said that their colleagues resisted them in various ways. Often colleagues refused, actively or passively, to change their practice, thus defending their autonomy. In some cases, they rebuffed the second-stage teacher’s attempts to enter their classroom. For example, Mai, a mathematics coach and fifth-year elementary school teacher in a large, urban district, described adamant resistance from colleagues who fiercely protected what they saw as their right to choose what and how to teach. Designed to improve math instruction in two schools, Mai’s role required her to organize professional development meetings, demonstrate sample lessons for her colleagues, and offer feedback on their teaching. She recounted, “I can’t even enter one teacher’s room because he is not open to me coming to his room while he teaches.” Mai further explained, “There are other teachers that, especially teachers that have been teaching for a long time, that aren’t comfortable with being observed, period.”

Even when colleagues gave Mai permission to enter their classrooms, they limited the extent to which she could influence their practice. She recalled, “I was told specifically from the union representative, ‘You cannot evaluate or make judgments, good or bad, on teachers or teaching practice.’ So I can’t say, ‘You did a great job with behavior management,’ even though that’s nice feedback to get.” Overall, by denying her access to their classrooms and by restricting the kind of feedback she could provide, Mai’s colleagues’ responded in ways that reinforced their right to teach as they thought best.

Clark, a tenth-year teacher in a suburban elementary school, was an instructional facilitator whose colleagues similarly resisted his work. He was expected to help colleagues align their teaching practices with a school-wide reform, but in doing so, he challenged their freedom to choose how and what to teach. He recalled, “. . . a lot of times people just didn’t come and see us [Clark and his co-facilitator],” which he said left him “out there soliciting work.” When colleagues did open their doors to Clark, they often deflected his efforts by using him as a substitute teacher rather than as an instructional advisor: “[T]hey leave for twenty minutes or they are grading papers . . . [they] weren’t really interested in getting better.” He said colleagues also became more reluctant to discuss their teaching and “more guarded” about their practice because they “thought that they [were] going to be evaluated.”

Colleagues who objected to the participants’ presence in their classrooms also appealed to the norm of egalitarianism, questioning whether any teacher could presume to hold expert knowledge or deserved the privileges, including special interactions with administrators, that accompanied the role. For example, Clark reported that his colleagues “inevitably” thought that he and the other instructional facilitator felt superior—“. . . you guys think you are better”—which strained their relationship and, he felt, led colleagues to avoid him. Disappointed by this response, Clark contrasted it with the time before he became an instructional facilitator, “ . . . when we were ‘just’ teachers; it was like we were all just kind of hanging and talking and everything.”

Similarly, Amanda, a third-year lead literacy teacher in an urban high school, encountered resistance from colleagues who invoked the norm of egalitarianism. In her role, Amanda led professional development sessions, helped teachers align their teaching and classroom organization with district expectations, and established consistent grading and curriculum sequencing in her department. She reported experiencing "some resistance to . . . just the idea of someone having release periods to do these things, when of course the old-timers in the district thought it was ridiculous." She reported that such resentment was not limited to senior colleagues, and that she was viewed warily by "newer teachers who are young go-getters, and they wonder why I'm getting all these extra positions. And so there's . . . some back-biting by some vicious little girls in the department." By elevating her as an expert in creating effective classrooms, Amanda's role seemed to provoke both her veteran and novice colleagues to resist her work.

In a somewhat different application of egalitarianism, Anna, a math consultant and fifth-year elementary teacher in a large, urban district, found colleagues wary of her closeness to the principal. Anna taught full-time in her school but also ran district-wide after-school classes for teachers on how to use the district’s math curriculum. Additionally, her elementary classes were often covered by substitutes so she could observe and coach other math teachers. Because her role demanded that she communicate frequently with her principal, Anna explained that it was “ . . . hard not to come off as principal’s pet.” Thus, she had to contend with “the union rep wanting to know . . . where is my loyalty.”

Second-stage teachers in reform roles also experienced resistance from colleagues who viewed them as too young or inexperienced to advise others about their work. This was true for Mai (aged 29) at the two schools where she coached. One senior teacher whom she was trying to help to learn how to use the district’s math curriculum asked provocatively, “And how old are you?” Similarly, Anna, who was also 29, recalled that in offering feedback to colleagues and leading professional development sessions, she had to be mindful of her age: “There’s that line to walk of, you know, not being the know-it-all. And my age is definitely a factor, and my experience.”

We wondered whether mid-career entrants to teaching, who were not as young as their first-career counterparts, also would encounter resistance from colleagues on the basis of inexperience. In fact, they did. Martin was a 41-year-old diversity coordinator and sixth-year teacher working to instill anti-racist practices in teachers at his suburban high school. He described how some “colleagues . . . of the older generation” thought he had not been teaching long enough to merit the released time he received as compensation for his role. Although not particularly young relative to his colleagues, Martin said they viewed his resource period “as a plum, as a deal” and begrudged him the time because of the “old mentality where the new teacher gets all the most difficult classes, all the behavior issues” and only “if you’ve been in teaching long enough you get the AP assignment and . . . a resource period or something like that.”

Likewise, Dave, a 45-year-old seventh-year teacher in an urban elementary school, served as a mathematics reform leader responsible for helping teachers implement a new math curriculum and analyze student test data. Dave was older than many of his colleagues but he said some still seemed to wonder, “‘Why him? Why didn’t I get that job? I’ve been doing this for eighteen years.’” Dave and Martin’s stories illustrate how violations of the norm of seniority occur when relatively new teachers, regardless of age, assume positions traditionally reserved for veterans.

In contrast to these second-stage teachers in reform roles, those who held non-reform roles encountered little resistance from colleagues, who generally did not withhold cooperation or question their legitimacy and authority in the role. Jack, for instance, was a suburban high school math department facilitator whose main duty was to lead meetings in which faculty created SAT-preparation ideas. In contrast to many participants in reform roles, Jack said one of the greatest rewards of his non-reform role was “working with my colleagues.” He described interactions with colleagues as “fun” and “enjoyable” and attributed his feelings of success in the role to the fact that “I work with great people who . . . have a lot to bring to the table.”

Similarly, Patrick was a ninth-year, urban middle-school teacher whose non-reform role involved supporting the mentors of novice teachers at his school. Importantly, he was not expected to influence how his more experienced colleagues taught students. Patrick reflected, "I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from . . . the teachers, in the small amount of stuff that I've done."

Likewise, Bill, a 31-year old history teacher with seven years of teaching experience, served as eighth-grade house leader in a suburban middle school. As house leader, Bill’s primary responsibilities were to monitor the academic performance and behavior of students in the eighth grade, to meet weekly with administrators and counselors about students, and to set the agenda for meetings with faculty members in his house. As with other non-reform roles, his position did not authorize him to change colleagues’ practice and he did meet with resistance from colleagues. Despite his occasional frustration with some teachers’ poor classroom management and failure to read memos, Bill generally experienced positive relationships with colleagues.

Anticipating and responding to resistance

Although they experienced opposition from colleagues, the participants who held reform roles still wanted to carry them out. Amanda wanted to offer feedback on colleagues’ literacy instruction. Clark was eager to see the reform model associated with his role take root in his school. Mai felt math instruction in her district needed improvement and she was determined to help her colleagues become more effective instructors. However, in most cases these teachers received little support from principals or district leaders in how to manage resistance and perform their roles. To improve the prospects that these changes would take hold, teachers in reform roles employed strategies to minimize their colleagues’ resistance and the emotional toll it took on them, but did so largely on their own. Some participants anticipated conflict even before entering the role and took steps to allay colleagues’ fears and fend off their opposition. Others responded strategically after tensions with colleagues rose. In doing so, participants in the roles themselves acted in ways that implicitly legitimized and fortified the norms of autonomy, egalitarianism, and seniority.

Strategies that reduced threats to autonomy

When participants recognized that their reform roles might provoke colleagues to resist, some informally negotiated with colleagues to reduce this threat. These negotiations were often unspoken and perhaps subconscious, based on teachers’ apprehension that their colleagues would reject them and their advice. With little support for how to deal productively with colleagues’ resistance, some scaled back their responsibilities and worked with only the most willing colleagues, thus affirming their colleagues’ right to choose whether or not to accept their assistance or counsel. Others tried to foster joint-ownership for the reforms championed by the roles, which also reinforced colleagues’ right to retain control over classroom decisions.

Sarah and Lauren, for example, worked only with those colleagues who welcomed them, even when these teachers already used pedagogy consistent with the instructional model their role was meant to promote. Sarah, an eighth-year teacher and science curriculum coordinator, was expected to work in schools to help the district’s elementary teachers create and conduct inquiry-based science lessons. However, she received little assistance in brokering entry to teachers’ classrooms and there was little public recognition of her exact responsibilities. Given this lack of support and ambiguity, she concentrated her time on those teachers who sought her out, and she did not pursue those who did not. Of colleagues who explicitly did not want her help, she said, “I’m not an administrator so I can’t tell someone that they need to have me in their room.” She further explained: “I found, for myself, that I am extremely busy just working with people who want to work with me, rather than hanging out at a building just sort of drumming up business.” Thus, she did not pursue those teachers who did not approach her, apprehensive that some might rebuff her requests and advice.

Similarly, in her work as a literacy coordinator, Lauren, a 28-year-old, eighth-year first-grade teacher and literacy coordinator, scaled back her intervention in order to protect her colleagues’ autonomy and reduce their resistance to her work. In her role, she was supposed to visit colleagues’ classrooms and help them incorporate literacy instruction strategies that were mandated by the district. In addition, she was to run professional development workshops. Like Sarah, Lauren’s role in her school was not well supported or clearly defined. She reported that colleagues’ resistance frustrated her. “It’s hard,” she explained, “when you feel like you’re working extremely hard to bring change, and it’s not happening.” In response, Lauren said she had become extremely flexible with teachers who refused to work with her, because the alternative would mean excessive effort and limited gains:

. . . I’ve kind of given up the fight with the teachers that constantly cancel on me or don’t want me in their room anyway. It’s real easy not to go into their rooms if they don’t want me there. And there’s also teachers that will never teach in front of me and want me in there to model. Well, I can model ‘til I’m blue in the face, but I know the minute I walk out the door, we go right back to a traditional-setting classroom, or back to their own method and manner of teaching that has nothing to do with this literacy model.

In the absence of support for her role at her school, Lauren, like Sarah, left her unwilling colleagues alone. In doing so, she preserved their autonomy, but probably reduced the impact of her role, albeit inadvertently. Much like Sarah, Lauren saw progress in the classrooms of teachers who sought her help on their own, “ . . . and that,” she said, is “what inspires you and keeps you moving.”

Some teachers we interviewed deliberately fostered collective ownership among colleagues for the reforms these new roles were meant to advance. They tried to position themselves as sources of support, not directives or dictates, and they allowed their colleagues to decide how best to incorporate the proposed changes in their classrooms. Anna had been advised by more senior colleagues that her success as a math consultant was directly related to her ability to, “present information . . . not in a way that feels suffocating. . . .” She should, they said, “ . . . give [her colleagues] good advice for making it their own.” Anna believed that presenting herself as a collaborator, rather than an authority, ensured that some of her veteran colleagues “got some ownership” over changes to their practice.

Similarly, Kelly—an urban elementary school literacy coach and sixth-year teacher—reported describing herself to her colleagues as a “facilitator” who “connected” colleagues to resources with which to improve their practice, rather than “telling” them what to do. Thus, by allowing the teachers they worked with to shape the reform, both Anna and Kelly recognized and reinforced their colleagues’ autonomy. Their role was to support, not direct, reform. Although they cast themselves as sources of “support,” Kelly and Anna spoke of pushing resistant colleagues to adopt reforms. Kelly said she tried to “ . . . lift people beyond the ‘I’m not going to do it’ mentality” by focusing on student performance. When leading workshops, she redirected her colleagues’ attention by continually asking, “What are the kids doing? Let’s look at the kids.”

What allowed Anna and Kelly to engage with resistant colleagues while Sarah and Lauren chose not to work with colleagues who opposed them? School context may have made the difference. Anna and Kelly worked at the same school, which had a distinctly collaborative climate. Sarah worked at several schools across a district and Lauren worked in a school not known for collegiality and collaboration. Anna and Kelly may have been able to engage with reluctant or oppositional colleagues because of the culture of their school.

Across settings, teachers who held reform roles revised or reduced their efforts to change colleagues’ practice. Kelly and Anna’s strategy was to recast their attempt to transform colleagues’ teaching so that it became a collaborative effort with those colleagues. Sarah and Lauren in some sense negotiated away their ability to change their colleagues’ practice on a broad scale, although they may have had good reason for doing so. Yet, because the warrant to change colleagues’ teaching is what separates reform roles from non-reform roles, in extreme cases, teachers transformed their reform roles into non-reform roles. In doing so, they felt they were able to reduce colleagues’ resistance but may have compromised or, in some cases, sacrificed the intent of their roles in the process.

Strategies that minimized threats to egalitarianism

Some of these second-stage teachers anticipated that their colleagues would disapprove of any role that distinguished them as instructional experts with the authority to change others’ classroom practice. With this in mind, some of the teachers we interviewed sought to avoid provoking the kind of resistance that these hierarchical distinctions might trigger. Intentionally or instinctively, they developed strategies to ease these tensions with their peers by entering the roles deliberately, demonstrating solidarity with colleagues, distancing themselves from administrators, or downplaying differences that their specialized roles implied.

Eric, a sixth-grade team leader, was expected to guide other teachers in analyzing student work, modifying their instructional practice, and establishing consistent expectations for student behavior. He worried before taking on the role that other teachers at his urban school would see him as “ . . . coming in as some sort of hot shot.” At first, he hesitated to accept his principal’s invitation to take on the role. Despite wanting the new position, Eric waited until his colleagues had expressed no interest in the role and had encouraged him to take it. He reasoned that this strategy would entitle him to respond to any colleagues who might later resent and resist his efforts: “You’re the ones who didn’t want it [the role], so I’m . . . expecting you guys to . . . give me a little bit more support.” Eric felt that his strategy was “the only way . . . of getting them to have this obligation where they have to be on board.” Thus, by concealing his interest in the role, he silenced subsequent objections. However, the very fact that he had to work around the norms of equality revealed and, perhaps reinforced, the continued influence of these norms among the teachers.

Eric’s fear of being seen as a “hot shot” was echoed by Sarah, the elementary school science curriculum coordinator, who explained the importance of not approaching colleagues in ways that seemed “patronizing” or “condescending.” She wanted to be sure that other teachers did not see her as trying to be superior: “I have just worked really hard to see that this [her role] is a support person, not someone who thinks they can do a better job. . . . You know, I’m a teacher, I’m another teacher.” She symbolically demonstrated her status as a peer by supervising recess, even though she often had to rush between schools to perform this duty.

To further reinforce an appearance of egalitarianism, some participants dispensed with their titles and downplayed the benefits of their roles. Sarah noted that when teachers asked her how she liked her role, she told them, “‘Yeah, I mean, I miss the classroom’ . . . . Because I wasn’t going to say, ‘It’s the perfect job. Do you know how much flexibility I have?’” Similarly, Eric told us, “I only use the word ‘team leader’ if I need to talk to parents or students that don’t [know] . . . and that’s about it. . . . What’s really important is I try not to make it as if that’s my title. I mean, it’s very important to keep yourself grounded in a way that, no . . . you’re not the boss.”

Several participants in our study chose to maintain their teaching responsibilities so that colleagues would not see them as seeking special, elevated status as instructional experts. Clark, whose role was initially designed to be a full-time position, chose to continue teaching part-time. In part, this was because he had anticipated that other teachers would prefer that the district fund class size reduction, which would have benefited all teachers equally, rather than the role, which paid only Clark and his co-facilitator. Clark explained that “ . . . there was some foresight on my part about some skepticism on the staff . . . I knew the staff was not pleased that the district had chosen to spend the money that way.” He felt that continuing to teach also limited the resistance he otherwise would have faced: “I think that helped for the validity of working with other teachers because they knew that we still had our own classroom. . . . I do feel that we [he and his co-facilitator] were more effective because people saw us as classroom teachers as well.”

Some participants in reform roles also tried to distance themselves from administrators in order to show solidarity with peers. For instance, Eric used his principal as a foil to downplay his own authority and emphasize his loyalty to colleagues. He told of asking his principal to “. . . show up [to sixth-grade team meetings] every now and then, whenever I request for him to show up, so it gives me an opportunity to make me look like the good guy and this [the principal] is the bad guy. . .” By appearing at team meetings, the principal could make it clear that Eric was not a “hot shot” but was one of them, subject to the same administrative directives as any other teacher.

In these cases, it is notable that teachers sometimes undermined the potential influence of their roles in an effort to reduce their colleagues’ opposition. In theory, these roles recognize teachers as experts and place them in positions in which they influence their colleagues’ practice. Thus, theoretically, these teachers had been promoted into these roles because they were judged in some sense to be experts. However, by emphasizing that they were, as Sarah said, “just teachers” they inadvertently obscured the expertise on which the success of their role depended. If Sarah was “just” a teacher, colleagues should not view her advice as more valuable or instructive than any other teacher’s and, thus, should not feel compelled to heed it.

The absence of strategies that minimized threats to seniority

Some participants tried to cope with how their peers might judge their appointment to the role in light of their relative inexperience and, for first-career entrants, their youth. For instance, 29-year old Mai, who had logged only five years in the profession, chose not to coach at her previous school “because of my age [and] my relative lack of experience. . . . I wouldn’t be considered legitimate to be coaching in that school.” At 32, Eric also worried that the “steady veterans” on his grade-level team would view his pursuit of a leadership role as premature because he was, “ . . . a younger teacher.”

Although participants anticipated resistance due to their youth and/or inexperience, they had few strategies for concealing the threat that their role posed to the norm of seniority. Theoretically, a young or inexperienced teacher might justify her attainment of a role by emphasizing her qualifications or skills, but this could be perceived as boasting, an affront to egalitarianism, which could further exacerbate tensions with colleagues.

Strategies that depersonalized resistance

While some of the participants’ strategies were meant to avoid, deflect, or minimize conflict with colleagues, others helped them tolerate the resistance when they encountered it. Some tried to depersonalize the resistance they experienced. Dave, the elementary school math reform leader and mid-career entrant, coped by staying focused on his responsibilities in the role. He explained: “Negative feedback has not affected my work. I’ve got a job to do, and I’m not going to let them stand in my way.” When Amanda’s colleagues opposed her as lead literacy teacher, she interpreted their response as rejecting her school's administration rather than herself: “It’s not so much me, you see, it’s the administration.” Teachers were, she said, reacting to the principal’s “ . . . heavy hand in the role. . . . Just the fact that [the principal] stands for reform is enough to turn off a lot of people . . . ”

DISCUSSION

A reform role publicly recognizes the teacher who holds it as an expert who is expected to improve her colleagues’ practice. Presumably, the teacher in the reform role is assigned that position, whether as literacy coach or diversity coordinator, because she is thought to be talented and knowledgeable. She is expected to use these skills and competencies to make her colleagues’ teaching better.

In our sample, however, many teachers in reform roles downplayed their expertise and made only tentative attempts to change colleagues’ practice. With little support from within or outside their schools, they became “stealth” teacher leaders, deliberately hiding their authority. Sometimes they understated and, in certain cases, even denied their expertise. In these instances, they surrendered their warrant to advise colleagues about what or how to teach. For whatever reason, many of these teachers seemed to exert little influence over what went on in colleagues’ classrooms, instead casting themselves as resource providers who made available materials and strategies, which colleagues could decide whether or not to use.

In concealing their authority, downplaying their expertise, and minimizing their attempts to change their colleagues’ teaching, some of these teachers seemed to surrender the very aspects of their roles that made them “reform” positions. In essence, to reduce colleagues’ resistance, some teachers in reform roles seemed to transform their roles into non-reform roles that posed little threat to colleagues’ authority or independence in the classroom.

Although based on a small sample, these findings suggest several lessons about the culture of teaching in schools, the nature of reform roles, and the experience of the teachers who held these positions. One lesson is that teaching’s traditional norms both reflect and continue to reinforce a flat, undifferentiated teaching career. At their most powerful, the norms of egalitarianism and autonomy suppress roles that identify teachers as instructional experts and charge them with changing their colleagues’ practice. These roles may still take hold and promote instructional change, but they must fight against tradition to do so.

Second, we found that not only did the second-stage teachers have to contend with resistance from colleagues that was rooted in norms of autonomy, egalitarianism, and seniority, but in their actions they, themselves, reinforced those norms. The norms were strong and resilient, despite current efforts in US schools that encourage teachers to work together to improve their practice. Moreover, the norms seem to persist in the midst of large-scale retirements from teaching and an influx of new teachers. Our findings suggest that early-career teachers may be as mindful of these norms as the veterans they replace. Indeed, second-stage teachers in reform roles encountered difficulty when asserting their expertise publicly or giving feedback to colleagues, even when these co-workers were also young and inexperienced.

Third, in our sample, reform roles seemed solitary, rather than embedded in a larger system of support. The teachers who encountered resistance generally did so alone. Few spoke about a helpful principal who publicly recognized and reinforced the teacher’s expertise and helped her broker admission into colleagues’ classrooms. None of these teachers referred to another teacher leader who helped her devise a plan for carrying out the role and handling colleagues’ opposition. In our sample, the implementation of these roles seemed to rely almost completely on the personal wherewithal and determination of individual teachers. Notably, where teachers such as Anna or Kelly reported engaging with resistant colleagues to advance a reform, they did so in a school context that promoted collaboration. However, this support seemed the exception in our sample, not the rule. By failing to set up support systems for these teacher leaders, principals generally had not given adequate consideration to the power of autonomy, egalitarianism, and seniority—and the resistance these norms may engender.  

Finally, these second-stage teachers seemed to lack an understanding of how to lead colleagues to change while also respecting their reasons for resisting change. Absent a model of how to claim expertise and share it with colleagues, these teachers tended to cast themselves as resource providers, who supplied materials and advice only to those teachers who approached them. Only a few teachers, like Anna and Kelly, were able to envision and enact a model of teacher leadership that allowed them to maintain their authority and assert their expertise while understanding their colleagues’ misgivings and honoring their colleagues’ knowledge. It may well be that their supportive school environment allowed them to conceive of a way to manage colleagues’ opposition while still advancing the reform associated with their role.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

In interviewing second-stage teachers who held differentiated roles, we wanted to understand teachers’ experience in these roles in order to shed light on their potential to improve school-wide instruction and reduce teacher attrition. We found that some roles explicitly focused on improving colleagues’ classroom practice, while others did not, and we classified these as reform roles and non-reform roles. We also found that most participants who held reform roles encountered resistance from colleagues, while those who held non-reform roles did not. We concluded that, unlike those in non-reform roles, when second-stage teachers carried out reform roles, they threatened the cultural norms of teaching. Finally, we found that teachers in reform roles used coping strategies that made their roles seem less threatening to colleagues and helped them take resistance less personally. Sometimes these coping strategies appeared to limit the extent of influence they might have on colleagues’ practice.

Because our study was exploratory and was based only on the perceptions of a small sample of second-stage teachers in roles, we must be cautious in speculating about implications. Nevertheless, we think that our findings can inform further work by policy-makers, practitioners, and researchers.

Implications for policy and research

Although reform roles hold potential for improving schools and retaining teachers, our data suggest that, currently, they may not be achieving these aims. Across settings, teachers in our sample reported changing the way they carried out their role in order to reduce resistance from their colleagues. When these roles appeared to work, as in the case of Anna or Kelly, that may have been the result of coaches’ interpersonal skills or the fact that their school may have provided a more deliberate system of support for the role and its reform than the other schools in the sample.  

In most cases, teachers seemed to define their role largely on their own. In their schools, there was no larger professional framework that publicly recognized their role, specified its duties and warrant, laid out its selection process, or created a system to support it. The ad hoc nature of these roles was problematic because the roles superimposed a hierarchy on schools’ flat structure and culture. Given the pervasiveness of the norms of egalitarianism, autonomy, and seniority in these schools, these ill-defined roles had little chance of succeeding as intended.

Although teachers who held reform roles encountered difficulties, we do not conclude that such roles hold no promise. Formalizing these roles—their responsibilities, rights, and selection process— and embedding them in a system of supports may make it possible for these roles to work as intended. In Toledo’s Peer Assistance and Review program, “consulting teachers” advise and evaluate beginning teachers and struggling veterans. Since 1981, teacher leaders in this district have influenced their colleagues’ practice and decided whether to recommend their continued employment. Toledo’s experience demonstrates that roles designed to change colleagues’ practice can succeed, given a clear and valid selection process, specific responsibilities, and adequate support. In Toledo, the district and teachers’ union have worked over time to define the consulting teacher’s role and responsibilities. At this point, teachers who choose to enter and stay in the Toledo system know of this program and accept the authority of consulting teachers to advise them about how to teach.

As reform roles for teachers expand in US schools, more research is needed to identify and explain the factors that contribute to their success. In addition to studying the implementation of these roles, research is needed to determine the breadth and depth of instructional improvement that takes place in schools that implement reform roles. Ideally, such research should look at a variety of school contexts, and it should examine the effectiveness of both second-stage and veteran teachers in these roles.

Implications for practice

The fact that participants in reform roles encountered resistance warrants the attention of practitioners. In particular, both administrators who seek to assign second-stage teachers to reform roles and teachers who are poised to take on these roles should anticipate some resistance and think proactively about how to respond. There are several ways that schools or districts might minimize the tensions that reform roles generate. First, administrators may well expect that teachers might resist efforts to change their practice, be explicit about the objectives of reform roles, and provide more support to people in these roles.

Second, second-stage and more veteran teachers who take on reform roles are entitled to professional development that prepares them to handle colleagues’ resistance while still promoting the reform their role is meant to serve. Thus, districts might offer training to these teacher leaders on how to respect their colleagues' professional needs and concerns while improving their instruction. If schools and districts intend for reform roles to have a lasting, positive impact on instruction, they may want to train those in reform roles to understand where resistance is coming from, why it occurs, and how to respond in ways that build trust rather than alienation.

Third, teacher leaders may want to assess the school context(s) in which reform roles will be implemented, since the cultural norms of autonomy, egalitarianism, and seniority may be more entrenched in some schools than in others. Kelly and Anna’s experiences suggest that, in certain contexts, teachers in reform roles may be more able to engage resistant colleagues in the reform their role is meant to advance. Teacher leaders might ask questions such as: How often are teachers observed at this school? How do they feel about being observed? Is the relationship between the teachers and administrators generally positive? How have other instructional reforms played out in recent years? Reform roles may be more readily received in a school with a progressive, collaborative culture than in a school with isolated teachers or a history of failed, administration-mandated reforms. Also, a young, second-stage teacher in a reform role may encounter less resistance in a school staffed by novice teachers than in a school where the majority of teachers are veterans.

Finally, once in their role, teacher leaders would be wise to enlist their supervisors to support their work. They could work with their principals to promote changes in their colleagues’ practice. To add to their role’s legitimacy, teacher leaders might ask principals to publicize their role, its selection process, and its responsibilities. They might also ask for help with a resistant teacher. Teachers who hold roles may need to ask their school or district leadership to reinforce their role’s authority and legitimacy.

In conclusion, it appears that the cultural norms that have long contributed to teachers' flat career paths remain alive and well in the era of accountability. Our findings suggest that these norms must be thoughtfully taken into account by reformers if differentiated roles are to have a lasting impact on the instructional quality of American schools or the attractiveness of the teaching profession.

Appendix A

Interview Protocol

1. I am interested in the work you do in your role as a ______________, but I know that you may have other roles. Can you mention any other roles you hold that feel important to you?

2. For this interview I would like to ask you about your work as a ________________.

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What do you do?

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Is time for this scheduled during the school day or after school?

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How long have you had this role?

3. I am wondering if your work in this role is compensated in any way. Do you receive extra pay or time off from your regular teaching duties to do this work?

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Do you know how that is funded?

4. I am interested in understanding how you came to have this role. Were you recruited for this role or did you pursue it on your own?

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Why did you accept/pursue this role?

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What were some of the pros and cons you weighed in deciding to take on this role?

5. I am interested in whether you have the support to do your job well.

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Did you have any training or preparation?

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Do you have the material resources you need?

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Do you have sufficient administrative support?

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Are there other _____s in your school or district? Do you have an opportunity to interact with them?

6. Do you get feedback on how you're doing in this role?

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From whom?

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How?

7. Have your relationships with colleagues at your school changed since you began this role?

8. Has your relationship with your principal changed since you began this role?

9. Do you find your work in this role rewarding?

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Why/why not?

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Can you tell me about some of the benefits and drawbacks?

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Do you think the work you do contributes to the school/district?

10. Do you find it a challenge to maintain your classroom responsibilities with this role?

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Does this role place new demands on you that teaching did not?

11. Do you hope to continue working in this role?

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Why/why not?

12. What are your plans for your career?

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Has having this role influenced your plans?

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