Educators for Excellence: A Mission to Elevate Teaching and Achieve Equity

Educators for Excellence (E4E) is a non-profit organization that strives to create an equitable and excellent education system where all students have the opportunity to succeed and elevate the teaching profession. Founded by public school teachers, E4E is a growing movement of more than 30,000 educators, united around a common set of values and principles for improving student learning and elevating the teaching profession. The organization aims to transform teachers’ unions to be more student-focused, democratic, diverse, and anti-racist.

The Genesis of Educators for Excellence

Founded by public school teachers, Educators for Excellence (E4E) is a growing movement of educators, united around a common set of values and principles for improving student learning and elevating the teaching profession. E4E was born out of the recognition that the voices of classroom teachers, the single most important in-school factor in improving student achievement, are consistently left out of education policy decisions.

Core Values and Principles

E4E operates on a foundation of shared values and principles, articulated in their Declaration of Teachers’ Principles and Beliefs. These principles guide the organization's work in organizing educators, training teacher leaders, and advocating for teacher-led recommendations at all levels of government, within teachers’ unions, and in the broader public conversation about education.

Theory of Change

E4E's Theory of Change is grounded in two inextricably linked long-term goals: better outcomes for all students, particularly those impacted by the opportunity gap, and the elevation of the quality and prestige of the teaching profession. The organization believes that achieving these goals requires systemic change at the district, state, and federal levels.

Key Strategies and Initiatives

To achieve its mission and goals, Educators for Excellence employs a multi-faceted approach that includes:

Organizing Educators: E4E brings together educators who share a common vision of equity and excellence in schools. This involves building a powerful movement of teachers who are committed to leading change and advocating for policies that support student success.

Training Teacher Leaders: E4E provides training and support to help teachers develop their leadership skills and become effective advocates for their students and profession.

Advocacy: E4E advocates for teacher-led recommendations at all levels of government, within teachers’ unions, and in the public conversation around education. This includes advocating for policies and programs that give all students access to a quality education.

Policy Recommendations: E4E advocates for policies based on local educator-created policy recommendations rooted in the E4E Declaration of Teachers’ Principles and Beliefs and aligned to their national policy agenda.

Locations

With chapters currently operating in Los Angeles, New York, Connecticut, Chicago, Boston, and Minnesota, Educators for Excellence (E4E) works together to identify issues that impact schools, create solutions to these challenges, and advocate for policies and programs that give all students access to a quality education.

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The Role of the Executive Director

E4E seeks dynamic leaders to serve as Executive Directors to lead their chapter. This role involves setting the strategy and vision for the chapter, owning and implementing the fundraising strategy for its next phase of growth, while also leading a high performing team. The Executive Director is the external representative of E4E’s work.

Essential Functions of an Executive Director

The Executive Director plays a crucial role in leading and managing the local chapter of Educators for Excellence. The core responsibilities encompass program design and execution, fundraising and management, team leadership, and community representation.

Design and Execute Local Programs and Strategy

Evaluate opportunities within the local landscape for educators to influence critical decisions at the district and state levels.
Design strategies to cultivate teacher members to grow their participation and pursue leadership roles within their districts, states, and importantly, within their unions.
Lead the team to achieve chapter power building goals related to organizing, advocacy, and teacher leadership campaigns.
Create and implement metric based organizing goals aligned with national goals and priorities.
Manage data systems for evaluating progress toward strategic goals, ensuring that local objectives are met while also aligning efforts with the national organization.
Oversee advocacy campaigns that impact policies based on local educator created policy recommendations rooted in the E4E Declaration of Teachers’ Principles and Beliefs and aligned to the national policy agenda.

Raise and Manage Funds

Work in collaboration with the Midwest Regional Development Manager (who reports into the national team) and National Development Team to fundraise the annual chapter budget of approximately $1.5M.
Innovate and expand local fundraising activities, with a strong focus on diversifying the current funding base, particularly by cultivating new individual and grassroots donors, exploring earned revenue opportunities, and stewarding relationships with existing partners in partnership with the national development team.
Administer the local budget, ensuring fiscal responsibility and stability.
Manage a Local Advisory Board (LAB) to support the growth and stability of the Chicago Chapter.

Build and Manage a High Performing Team

Serve as a model of our core values and promote a strong team culture.
Recruit, select, coach and retain talented team members.
Manage towards ambitious programmatic and operational goals.
Coach and manage a team of six, including two direct reports, focused on setting the vision for and managing execution of the chapter’s local strategy; the implementation of E4E’s grassroots organizing model; teacher leadership programs and event series; and supporting the Deputy Director of Campaigns in their direct management of a team of Organizers; the effective implementation of a team culture that is aligned to our Core Values, especially DEI, and focuses on impact.

Represent E4E in the Community

Give speeches, author op-eds, attend education events and conferences, work with media, and engage with teachers and the general public to uplift the perspectives and ideas of E4E members.
Secure opportunities for teachers to share their voice directly in local media.
Build and maintain relationships with local policymakers, union leaders, key stakeholders, interest groups, and elected officials to support our local strategy.
Establish E4E-Chicago as a source for the opinions and perspectives of progressive educators on issues that impact Chicago’s classrooms.

Serve on E4E’s Leadership Team

Participate in Leadership Team (LT) calls, retreats, and Executive Director (ED) Cohort meetings, requiring quarterly travel.
Share input on key decisions that impact the entire organization and proactively develop potential solutions to the concerns identified for the betterment of our work, our culture, our staff and our whole organization.
Act as a two-way communicator between the local team and the Leadership Team and vice versa, elevating issues and communicating important information.
Engage in org-wide community-building and work teams

Qualifications for Leadership Roles

E4E seeks individuals with a strong background in education, policy, or organizing, and a demonstrated commitment to equity and excellence in education. The ideal candidate possesses a combination of experience, knowledge, and skills.

Experience

At least ten years experience in leading others within the education, education policy, campaign organizing, and/or advocacy space, including at least five years of experience in pre-K - 12 education, classroom teaching experience, community organizing, campaign organizing and/or union organizing preferred. Experience managing high-performing teams by setting clear, well-defined goals and managing desired outcomes through layers. Political savvy and demonstrated track record of effectively navigating complex power dynamics and building coalitions, and experience managing or working on electoral campaigns and within or in partnership with labor unions. Establish a clear vision that is mission aligned, sets measurable goals and develops teams and activities to maintain alignment with this vision. Demonstrated experience building partnerships; and/or prior experience within fundraising/development preferred.

Knowledge and Skills

An acumen for building an inclusive workplace where diversity and individual differences are valued and leveraged to achieve the vision and mission of the organization. The ability to build and maintain a deep knowledge of key Chicago and IL legislative, economic, social, and political trends and developments, including deep knowledge of the educational landscape; and their impact on the organization, its strategy, and its internal and external stakeholders, while digesting information to inform organizational positions and stances. The ability to identify necessary shifts in a timely manner, involves key stakeholders in the planning process, promote buy-in & follow-through, and adjust course as needed. Make decisions in the best interest of the broader organization; constantly leveraging opportunities to advance or promote organizational goals and expand impact; address short term needs with the longevity of the organization in mind. Functional knowledge about: the Chicago education, political, and donor landscape, Education systems and classroom practice knowledge, Functional knowledge needed to lead an anti-racist organization, build effective teams, effective advocacy and organizing tactics/strategy, Internal management of a small organization (i.e. budgeting, operations, development).

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Compensation and Benefits

Educators for Excellence offers a competitive salary and benefits package to its employees. The salary range for the Executive Director position in Chicago is $130,000 - $168,000, and the organization provides robust benefits.

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

Educators for Excellence is an equal opportunity employer and an organization that values diversity. Recruiting staff to create an inclusive organization is a priority, and E4E encourages applicants from all backgrounds.

Challenges in Education

Our nation’s education system is leaving millions of students-including an overwhelming number of students of color and low-income students-unprepared for college, career, and life. Only one in 10 students of color and low-income students graduates from college in the United States. While research shows that classroom teachers are the single most important in-school factor in improving student achievement, their diverse voices are consistently left out of education policy decisions.

Related Organizations

At the Center for Excellence and Equity in Teacher Preparation (CEETP), they strive to prepare professionals who will develop the competencies, dispositions, leadership skills, and advocacy skills to become effective educators committed to improving the lives of individuals in a global society by ensuring that all children have access to high-quality, skillful teaching and learning. The Center for Excellence and Equity in Teacher Preparation (CEETP) provides support and services for students and faculty in the University of Delaware’s undergraduate and graduate education programs, as well as our Alternative Routes to Certification Program across campus. The Center for Excellence in Education (CEE), a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization, nurtures high school and university scholars to careers of excellence and leadership in STEM, and encourages collaboration between and among scientific and technological leaders in the global community. CEE’s programs challenge students and assist them on a long-term basis to become creators, inventors, scientists and leaders of the 21st century.

Educator Workforce Development

We work to ensure Washington’s educator workforce is composed of equity-minded, professional educators who meet the diverse needs of students, schools, and districts. We work towards this vision by creating innovative policies that strengthen educator quality, support workforce development, and advance equitable pathways into the profession. The educator career continuum demonstrates the journey an educator takes as they navigate pathway options, preparation programs, certification, and growth opportunities throughout their professional roles. The journey to a meaningful career in education begins with a roadmap of clearly defined pathways to get there. By cultivating interest among students and providing them with opportunities to explore a teaching career, these pathways can start as early as high school. Other pathways are needed for those looking to explore traditional teacher preparation options, either through degree or certificate programs.

Diversity and Representation in Education

K-12 students are more diverse than the educator workforce and completers of teacher preparation programs. The biggest representation gap between teacher preparation program completers and K-12 student composition is Hispanic / Latino of any race. In 2018-2019, this gap was 16.8% (23.6% of K-12 students were Hispanic / Latino and 6.8% of alternative route completers were Hispanic / Latino). The majority of teacher preparation program completers and the educator workforce are women. In 2018-2019, 22.08% of the educator workforce was male. To close this representation gap, teacher preparation program completers will need to be more proportionally male and gender X (non-binary and other gender choices).

Educator Preparation and Assessment

Each and every student deserves to learn from a well-prepared educator. PESB recognizes the importance of analyzing assessment pass rates by race-ethnicity because of the legacy of harm caused by inappropriate research methods and the (mis)use of data to make claims about others. The WEST-E or NES is a content knowledge assessment that teacher candidates must pass prior to becoming a certified teacher. Passing the WEST-E or NES is one way PESB knows if teacher candidates have been prepared with the knowledge necessary to serve K-12 students well. The edTPA is a performance assessment that teacher candidates must pass prior to becoming a certified teacher. Passing the edTPA is one way PESB knows if teacher candidates have been prepared with the skills necessary to serve K-12 students well.

Educator Hiring and Placement

The hiring and placement process of educators sets the stage for meaningful employment. The knowledge, skills, and dispositions for working with middle school students are very different from those of a kindergarten teacher, special education paraeducator, a high school principal, and a school psychologist. Districts must carefully consider an educator’s classroom assignment and ensure that students are at the center of those decisions. K-12 courses are generally taught by teachers who often have an endorsement that PESB has matched to that course, but districts can choose to place a teacher in an out of endorsement assignment. School districts may also use limited teacher certificates to assign teachers to K-12 courses. This can be an indicator of the need for credentialed teachers.

Educator Retention and Persistence

Most educators begin their careers feeling inspired, excited, and eager to enter the classroom. Approximately 93% of all teachers in Washington K-12 continue the next year in some educator role. Beginning teachers consistently leave the profession at higher rates than the overall teacher workforce. Paraeducator persistence is noticeably lower than teachers’. In 2018-19, 84.3% of all paraeducators continued the next year in some educator role. The persistence of all ESAs is comparable to the teacher persistence rate. In 2018-19, 92.2% of all ESAs continued in some educator role the next year. Beginning nurses particularly are the least likely to persist. Superintendents, deputy superintendents, principals, vice principals, and administrators have a comparable persistence rate to teachers as well: 93.2% of all in 2018-19 continued the next year in some educator role.

Educator Growth and Development

When educators enter the profession for the first time, they are a novice. Over time and through continuing education, reflection, professional development, and leadership opportunities, educators can transform their experience into expertise. As educator performance becomes more sophisticated, more refined, and more competent, more students and educators benefit.

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