Teacher Leadership

It's hard to describe teacher leadership in a few words, there so many definitions attached to it. Teacher leadership consist of teachers who are active in the classroom and/or in the community for the sake of better education and higher learning. Teachers who practice what they preach by not only voicing their opinions and concerns but also getting involved in the decision process of making policies or programs for the betterment of schools and most importantly, students. Teacher leadership are teachers who go far and beyond to improve the quality of education for their students and who don't mind getting their hands a little dirty.

According to this website, ,
"teacher leaders can be describe as coaches or instructional leaders; teachers who serve on school, district, state or national advisory or policymaking groups; teachers who chair departments or school teams; teachers who provide the energy to sustain professional learning communities—and we could cite many more examples".
The website includes a panel of questions pertaining to teacher leadership, for instance:
To what extent do you feel that the public school system is set up to support the development of teachers as leaders?
On what issues do you think it's most important for teachers to assert themselves as leaders?

The website is a great source to use for analyzing the roles of teachers as leaders and it even suggest ways that teachers can become more involved in their schools and community in terms of educational policies and programs.

Another article I stumble across is , the article discuss the various leadership roles teachers obtain:

• choosing textbooks and instructional materials;
• shaping the curriculum;
• setting standards for student behavior;
• deciding whether students are tracked into special classes;
• designing staff development and in-service programs;
• setting promotion and retention policies;
• deciding school budgets;
• evaluating teacher performance;
• selecting new teachers; and
• selecting new administrators.

In the article, the author mentions that "student
learning depends first, last, and always on the quality of the teachers.”
I agree with these statement however, teachers do not always have the necessary training or resources to help all students.

Teachers also shouldn't be blamed 100% for the quality of education students receive because many times students DO NOT want to learn. Teachers cannot force students to learn, they can only teach them as best they can and try to reach out to them. But once again, they can not make them do anything.
It's just like the role of a parent; parents can instill values in their children, establish rules for them to adhere to, set a good example for them, preach to them about the do's and don'ts of life, treat them with respect and give them plenty of love and affection, however, at the end of the day that child will make his or her own decisions & mistakes, no matter what their parents did or taught them, that child will DO WHAT EVER THEY WANT.
I'm not saying these methods are useless i mean they do work the majority of the time but we most recognize that students have a mind of their own and if they want to fail or ditch class they will do just that.
Teachers can try to instill school values in their students but once again, it's up to students to make the correct decision, NOT THE TEACHER.

Moreover, my goal as a future teacher is to become as active as possible in and out of the classroom in order to become an effective teacher leader so that I can directly impact my school, its teachers and most importantly the students.

Q. Should all teachers be expected to become teacher leaders, why or why not? If the majority of all teachers were leaders, will the quality of education improve?