Amidst the contentious debates about teacher effectiveness, most people believe that unions, education colleges,
charter networks, consulting agencies, textbook publishers, test producers, professional associations,
teachers, and researchers disagree with one another about the most essential school reforms. Though all these
groups do certainly have their own interests and perspectives, they also all desire to see that students are better
prepared for a competitive world. What if all these groups worked together for that very goal? What would
happen if all reform work in PK-12 education centered on the improvement of teaching? Would teachers be
treated differently? Would they respond to their work in more innovative ways? Would it change the quality of
education that children in the United States receive?
Six Degrees of School Improvement: Empowering a New Profession of Teaching provides glimpses of this
realistic approach to American education reform with an eye toward what the system might look like in one to
two generations from now. The book makes a solid case for "collaborative professionalism," a system that
binds professionals together under a common set of understandings about the ways in which children and adolescents learn content knowledge and
acquire skills. It argues that popular approaches to school improvement circumvent teachers and thus further de-skill and disempower the very people
responsible for student learning in classrooms. Most importantly, the book provides very clear guidance on building a system of collaborative professionalism
among teachers.