Evaluating The Power Of Teacher Empowerment

Evaluating the Power of Teacher Empowerment exposes the myth of false empowerment and makes the case that effective school leaders come from the ranks of career educators. The study posits that teacher empowerment is a prerequisite for student achievement and an indispensable component of effective school leadership. Evaluative research, with the researcher as participant-observer, was utilized in this study to examine the impact of teacher empowerment on student achievement, teacher collaboration, and school culture in a secondary school. An underlying assumption of the study was that the teacher is the key to effective instruction and the potential for student achievement is maximized in a school culture that recognizes and rewards teacher leadership. In contrast to the corporate model of school leadership, the study¿s findings support the need for a new paradigm of teacher empowerment that supplants the thinness of the single school leader with collaborative, participatory democracy that represents multiple voices in education. True empowerment is realized when accountability flows horizontally and obligation is reciprocal in nature.