Beyond Teacher Leadership: Retaining Educators With Individual Contributor Career Pathways

Workplace promotions can bring increased prestige, responsibility, and rewards. However, in PK-22 education, the typical promotion opportunities for educators require a significant career change into teacher leadership or principal leadership with the assumption of management roles requiring different skills and personal characteristics than student-facing educator roles. One career pathway model—individual contributors—could motivate educators to remain in the classroom while nevertheless earning promotions with social recognition and pay increases. Using Illinois as a policy implementation site, this article will illustrate why educator career pathways focusing only on leadership and management roles fail to influence more educators to remain in the classroom.