Teaching 2030, a new book about the future of teaching and learning, is creating a lot of “buzz” in education circles and has garnered endorsements from individuals as diverse as conservative policy analyst Rick Hess, former education secretary Richard Riley, and teaching scholar Linda Darling-Hammond. Two of the book’s 12 teacher co-authors are educators with Alabama backgrounds. In an interview posted here Friday, Emily Vickery answered questions about the changes in K12 education she and her writing colleagues foresee over the next several decades. Today we’ve invited Talladega County teacher leader Jennifer Barnett to write her own post about one of the book’s “big ideas” – what she describes as the Age of the Teacherpreneur.


by Jennifer Barnett

My name is Jennifer Barnett and I am a teacherpreneur.

My teaching career began 20 years ago and almost immediately I found myself leading. I suppose one might have called me a teacher leader.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, CEO of Powerful Learning Practice and the lead consultant for ABPC’s 21st Century Learners initiative several years ago, has said that “teacher leadership is about reaching out past the four walls of your classroom and leading other teachers.” I totally agree with Sheryl. In fact, I spent the first 10 years of my career reaching out as much as I could. Chairing departments and vertical teams, developing curriculum, leading professional development, teaching higher education courses, mentoring new teachers, and supervising the internships of teacher candidates were the types of leadership that characterized my early career.

Over the last ten years I’ve been working to extend my reach. I’ve helped establish new community traditions by connecting my school to its community, groomed new teacher leaders in my district through our teacher-led technologytraining initiative, and worked to foster change in system thinking. These larger scale actions mark my progression as a leader who still works with students regularly. To fully understand today’s teacher leader, we need a fresh perspectivethat can encompass the work of individuals who pursue these kinds of pathways and opportunities. A new framework now exists for thinking about this emerging subset of teacher leaders. It is called teacherpreneurism.

Over the past several years, I’ve had the privilege of studying and writing about teaching with 12 amazing colleagues from across the nation. The results of our efforts can be found in the co-authored book recently published by Teachers College Press: Teaching 2030 – What We Must Do for Our Students and Our Public Schools – Now and in the Future. (For a quick overview, take a look at our four-minute visual summary.) Laying out a vision for our profession in 2030 was the sort of challenge well-suited for this group. Our intense debates and focused webinar discussions with many experts forced us to accept difficult truths about our profession, as we designed and recommended solutions for radical change by 2030.

One of the truths about our profession we addressed in our book concerned the need to attract some of our nation’s best and brightest and keep them fully engaged throughout a career.

Or put another way: Why should I enter a classroom to teach and why should I stay?

Too Many Ways Out

One out of five teachers leave the classroom by their third year. Three out of every five teachers leave the classroom by their fifth year. The effects this weak retention has on our students – especially in high needs schools – is staggering. Everyone agrees about that. Unfortunately, consensus on the best methods for recruiting and retaining teachers is more difficult to attain. My fellow authors and I believe we must address the teacher’s role to radically change this statistic.

There are too many ways out of the classroom and not enough ways up. Many teachers feel deflated that the perceived manner of “moving up” in education involves becoming an administrator. While schools need administrators of the highest caliber, not all teachers wish to pursue such a course. So what can we do to provide a system that supports teachers as they seek multiple talent pathways and opportunities while continuing to teach students? Creating a nation of teacherpreneurs can change our profession.

The Age of the Teacherpreneur 

The term teacherpreneur is defined as “teacher leaders of proven accomplishment who have a deep knowledge of how to teach, a clear understanding of what strategies must be in play to make schools highly successful, and the skills and commitment to spread their expertise to others – all while keeping at least one foot firmly in the classroom.” (Teaching 2030)

In our book, we have outlined four “big bucket” roles for teacherpreneurs: Connected learning, research, best practice, and policy. If an accommodating structure existed, a teacher could spend a portion of the day with students and a portion of the day mentoring teachers – or connecting students and teachers to pathways for success both within the school/community and on a global scale. They might help brainstorm and support the implementation of policies that solve local and state education problems – or lead, conduct and share action research in classrooms. Many highly motivated teaching professionals seek the opportunity to share their experience and expertise in a more systematic way. It’s time we consider how we can make this happen.

To deepen the discussion, we have presented these and other Teaching 2030ideas to various groups and organizations over the last year. I had the privilege of joining Barnett Berry, the lead author of our book, for a talk at last summer’s meeting of the Council of Chief State School Officers and more recently at a workshop for the Alliance for Excellent Education. Other co-authors have presented at conferences, conducted interviews and book talks, and written extensively about the coming Age of the Teacherpreneur. The reception from teachers and many other educators has been tremendous.

This concept has traction.

How far could a force of 600,000 teacherpreneurs, working in districts across the nation, lift our schools toward their potential? How do we identify them? How do we change the system to support this new talent pathway and opportunity for teachers?

My writing colleague Renee Moore, a former Carnegie Scholar and Mississippi Teacher of the Year, captures our sentiments so well:

“We stand on the cusp of a great opportunity to end generations of educational discrimination and inequity, finally to fulfill the promises of our democratic republic. I believe the noblest teachers, students, and leaders of 2030 will be remembered by future generations as those who surged over the barriers to true public education and a fully realized teaching profession—while myopic former gatekeepers staggered to the sidelines of history.”

It is time for all teachers to add their voice to the conversations that shape our profession. Join the conversation at The Future of Teaching blog. Your voice matters and needs to be heard today to affect the change we expect in the future.

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After teaching more than a dozen different language arts and social science courses in two Alabama school systems, Jennifer Barnett recently assumed the role of school-based technology integration specialist at Winterboro School in Talladega County. at Winterboro School. A veteran teacher of nearly 20 years, she was selected as Alabama’s District III Teacher of the Year in 2001 and receivedthe state’s Marbury Technology Innovation Award in 2008. She designed and continues to lead a 21st-century learning initiative for her school system, implementing a protocol for integrating 21st-century skills with content standards. Jennifer is a member of the Teacher Leaders Network, a program of the Center for Teaching Quality.