Prioritize adult learning in content, pedagogy, and race

Support school leaders and districts in creating environments that prioritize adult learning, particularly with respect to content, pedagogy, and race. Effective training will work only if it is reinforced by ongoing opportunities for site-based professional learning. School leaders need to be trained and supported in creating environments which prioritize teacher-led opportunities for continued adult growth and learning. In turn, districts need to create the incentives, supports, structures, and systems that would support schools in becoming places of continued growth and improvement.

Creating opportunities for adult learning is particularly acute given rising expectations for schools. Teachers need opportunities to extend their own knowledge of content, even as they expect students to engage in more complex work. They need chances to collaborate as they develop lessons and classroom cultures to support deeper inquiry. Finally, in a nation where the student population is already majority-minority but the teaching force remains 83 percent white, teachers of all races will need to build and extend their skills in developing productive relationships with students across lines of difference.