Lee Teitel

Lee Teitel is a retired Lecturer on Education, whose career has focused on educational leadership, equity, and school and system improvement. Over two decades at HGSE, he taught courses on leadership, partnerships, organizational change, integrated schooling, and leading for equity and diversity.

Teitel was the founding director of the Executive Leadership Program for Educators, a five-year collaboration among Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, Business School, and Kennedy School. The program supported urban and high-need districts in scaling high-quality teaching and learning. He later led HGSE’s School Leadership Program for eight years, where a sustained focus on race and equity helped triple the number of students of color and quadruple the number of African Americans graduating to become principals and school leaders.

He co-developed the widely used Instructional Rounds practice and co-authored Instructional Rounds in Education with Elizabeth City, Richard Elmore, and Sarah Fiarman, 2009) and wrote many articles and a follow-up book on School-Based Instructional Rounds (2013). For a decade, Teitel co-chaired Harvard’s Instructional Rounds Institute and helped launch rounds networks across the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Sweden.

In 2015, with support from the HGSE Dean’s Office and subsequent external funding, Teitel founded the Reimagining Integration: Diverse and Equitable Schools (RIDES) Project. RIDES supported schools, districts, and charter organizations in creating inclusive environments where all students learn, feel they belong, and work to address racism. Through RIDES and his consulting work and since his retirement, he has supported over 100 schools and districts nationwide in confronting and addressing inequities.

Teitel has created equity-focused leadership networks in five states, supporting more than 200 white superintendents and central office leaders in the personal, professional, and practical work of addressing racism. Some of Teitel’s most impactful work involves students as equal partners in identifying and addressing inequities in their schools.  In collaboration with Dr. Darnisa Amante-Jackson (EdLD 2016), he has convened white and BIPOC central office leaders to work—in affinity groups and across them—to learn from each other and create common ground for addressing race and racism. He and Dr. Amante-Jackson have provided multiple professional learning opportunities for districts and for organizations like METCO and the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, including recent workshops series to build skills on “Persuasive Communication about Race and Equity.”   In addition to writing about this growing body of innovative racial equity work for publication (see below), Teitel and his collaborators have presented it in workshops and conference presentations, including, for the last four years, at the American Association of School Administrators’ National Conference on Education.

Amid rising political polarization, Teitel also has focused on depolarization strategies—learning and then teaching approaches to listen across differences and engage in respectful conflict. He is a trained volunteer with Braver Angels, a national bridge-building organization, where he co-facilitates a monthly Red/Blue network and serves as a Debate Chair to foster constructive disagreement and mutual learning.