Want to Improve Teaching? - Create Collaborative, Supportive Schools

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by McGucket

The article argues that improving instruction in urban schools requires more than targeting individual teachers. It shows how the organizational context—teacher collaboration, inclusive instructional leadership, psychological safety, effective classroom norms, and supportive parent relationships—strongly predicts teacher retention and students’ learning progress. It also highlights that weak school environments worsen turnover and prevent sustained instructional improvement, reinforcing long-standing inequities tied to race and economic status.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages2

Reading Time5 min

AccessFree to download

Want to Improve Teaching?

Create Collaborative, Supportive Schools

School and Classroom Context

Want to Improve Teaching? Create Collaborative, Supportive Schools BY ELAINE ALLENSWoRTH imagine trying to be an effective teacher at a school where the average student misses two months of class time out of nine months of the school year—a common situation in urban high schools. Further, imagine that your fellow teachers and school leaders refuse to work together to prevent students from skipping class or support struggling students in a coordinated way. You may stay, but probably not for long, and not if you have other options. Teachers tend to leave schools where they feel ineffective. At the same time, it’s harder to be effective in schools with the lowest levels of student performance, schools that are most in need of effective teaching. There is a pressing need to improve the quality of instruction in urban schools to reduce long-standing inequities in educational performance by race and economic status. The current policy context acknowledges the importance of teaching quality for student achievement, but the most popular policy strategies for improving teaching focus on individual teachers, using incentives to attract and reward strong teachers, and developing methods to identify and remove those who are weak. The work my colleagues and i have done at the consortium on chicago School research shows that the context in which teachers work sets the stage for them to be effective and want to stay in their school. it does little good to put highly qualified teachers in a weak school if they are unlikely to stay there, or if they are not able to put their skills to good use because of larger problems in that school environment. There is a role for examining individual teachers’performance, and for using performance management to build the professional Elaine Allensworth is the interim executive director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago, where she previously was the senior director and chief research officer. Currently, she is working on several studies of high school curriculum; she was once a high school Spanish and science teacher. This article is adapted, with permission, from “Teacher Performance in the Context of Truly Disadvantaged Schools in Chicago”by Elaine Allensworth, which appeared in the Fall 2011 issue of Voices in Urban Education ([www.annenberg](www.annenberg)[ ](www.annenberg)[institute.org/VUE](institute.org/VUE)), published by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. capacity of a school, but it is unlikely to be effective if it narrowly focuses on individual teachers. Without broader work on the school as an organization, schools serving the most disadvantaged students will face high rates of teacher turnover and little chance of sustained instructional improvement. in our study on teacher mobility in climate at the school. Teachers are more likely to stay at schools where students feel safe, and where students report that their classroom peers engage in appropriate academic behavior.3 research outside of chicago has likewise found that working conditions seem to affect whether teachers remain teaching in their school. For example, Schools that show the largest improvements are those where teachers work collectively on improving instruction, and where school leadership is inclusive and focused on instruction. chicago, The Schools Teachers Leave,1 we found that the quality of the work environment was strongly predictive of whether teachers remained in their schools. One key element in teacher retention is teachers’ perceptions of their colleagues as collaborators. Teachers are more likely to stay in a school if they see themselves as part of a team that is working together toward making their school better, supported by school leadership. Teachers are also more likely to stay in schools where they feel they have influence over their work environment and they trust their principal as an instructional leader. These are th

FAQs

How are working conditions linked to improvements in student learning?

Schools with the largest gains over time tend to have teachers working collectively on instruction and leadership focused on instruction, mirroring the elements that support retention.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by McGucket