Advancing Women's Leadership in Education: Building Pathways for System-Wide Change

Women hold most teaching positions, but only a fraction of educational leadership roles. There's a missing rung in the profession: to advance, teachers must leave the classroom. This proposal leverages team-based staffing models to create compensated lead teacher positions, where preparation courses count toward a principal preparation program, and prepare leaders for more sustainable roles in schools with greater distributed leadership. All teachers, particularly women, will experience coherent pathways from classroom leadership to principalship.