Next Education Workforce

As a field, education has focused on changing teachers’ instructional knowledge and skills and the content that students learn. Yet, our education system is not reliably delivering quality learning experiences and outcomes for nearly enough people and communities. In The Next Education Workforce: How Team-Based Staffing Models Can Support Equity and Improve Learning Outcomes, Carole G. Basile, Brent W. Maddin, and R. Lennon Audrain argue that we need to redesign how schools organize educators and learners. The authors highlight how the normative one-teacher, one-classroom model underserves both learners and educators. They then make the case that, to achieve more equitable learning outcomes for students and better working conditions for teachers, schools should create teams of educators with distributed expertise that can deliver deeper and more personalized learning experiences for students.This book then addresses practical steps for school and system leaders to take by outlining core elements of Next Education Workforce models, including new ways for educators to specialize and advance in the profession; offering concrete actions to help leaders navigate and facilitate sustainable systems change; and offering a provocative prescription of how teacher preparation, professional learning, and human resource systems will need to change to support team-based models.

There are few, if any, contemporary “industries” that have changed as little as education. While many leaders propose many siloed “remedies” to improve schools and learning, no one has addressed the fact that our contemporary education system is still rooted in the 18th century, one teacher-one classroom model. The Next Education Workforce: How Team-Based Staffing Models Can Support Equity and Improve Learning Outcomes asks that we abandon antiquated ways of educating and embrace a new vision of education for all—team-based, learner-centric, community-focused, and workforce ready. Our 21st century students and their educators eager to embrace new models of teaching and learning deserve an educational approach for the future—not one stuck in the past., If you think schools can’t look different from when you were a kid, think again. Carole G. Basile, Brent W. Maddin, and R. Lennon Audrain shine a light on one of the most important movements in education today: redesigning schools to be great places to work and great places to learn., The Next Education Workforce is a brilliant, timely, and evidence-based guide to how K-12 and university educators can think differently about organizing people and time in our nation’s schools. Kudos to Basile, Maddin, and Audrain for plowing new ground to address teacher shortages and the needs to transform teaching and learning—and schooling—for today and tomorrow. Our students deserve no less., Educators transform lives daily. Teams of educators can provide greater equity and access, impacting generations of learners. The Next Education Workforce provides educator teams with the vision, research, and strategies to support robust learning opportunities and connections for all they serve.

Carole G. Basile is dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. Brent W. Maddin is executive director of the Next Education Workforce initiative in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. R. Lennon Audrain is a PhD student in educational policy and evaluation in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University.