Abstract
School turnaround—a reform strategy that strives for quick and dramatic transformation of low-performing schools—has gained prominence in recent years. This study uses interviews and focus groups conducted with 86 teachers in 13 schools during the early stages of school turnaround in a large urban district to examine teachers’ perceptions of the social and organizational conditions within their schools. The study shows that some turnaround schools provided more positive working conditions than others, particularly with respect to organizational function and culture. It further finds a strong association between teachers’ perceptions of school-level working conditions and support for school turnaround.
“I would say that there were a lot of unknowns coming into the school year, there were a lot of things that were not set down in stone. Someone mentioned the phrase that they were building a plane while it was flying. I did get that feeling and I think that we should build the plane before we take off. It gets you going in one direction, and then you change; you are worried you might crash.”
School turnaround—a reform strategy that involves changing school management, replacing the majority of the teaching staff, and making significant changes to school operations—has become an increasingly popular response to the challenge of low-performing schools. 1 It is also a model that places intense demands on teachers, prompting the turnaround teacher quoted in our title to remark that she had “never seen people work so hard!” To date, research on school turnaround has focused on implementation strategies and the impact on student outcomes (Baroody, 2011; Ferris, 2012; Herman et al., 2008; Murphy, 2010). This is understandable, as the strategy has gained national attention precisely because it is intended to produce dramatic growth in student learning in schools that have been seemingly immune to reform. In this literature, however, teachers are generally treated as objects of the reform, a constituency that must be convinced that change is possible and whose energies turnaround principals must channel in one way or another (Herman et al., 2008; Leithwood, Harris, & Strauss, 2010). Thus, researchers urge leaders to strive for “teacher buy in” and to “show teachers” that success is possible (Salmonowicz, 2009). While such recommendations may be useful, an understanding of teachers as agents in the turnaround process—as the very people doing the hard work of transforming schools—is missing from the conversation.
Although the theory of action underlying the turnaround model assumes that dramatic improvement will occur only when the staff is qualified and committed (Herman et al., 2008), research has not yet examined how teachers experience school turnaround. Furthermore, although there are a number of different models for school turnaround, we know little about how variations in organizational structure, culture, and practices shape teachers’ day-to-day experiences and their beliefs about the turnaround process. The literature on teachers’ working conditions has identified a number of factors—including class size, workload, school culture, professional autonomy, and opportunities for development—as critical to teachers’ satisfaction, commitment, and effectiveness (Allensworth, Ponisciak, & Mazzeo, 2009; Bascia, & Rottman, 2011; Ingersoll, 2003; Johnson, Kraft, & Papay, 2011; Ladd, 2011). These findings suggest that the quality of working conditions has implications for the task of turning around low-performing schools. Indeed, the extent to which teachers believe turnaround schools provide supportive and positive working environments may be crucial to the success of this reform strategy.
This paper contributes to the growing body of research on turnarounds by describing teachers’ working conditions in the early stages of the turnaround model. We focus on the early stages because it is during this period that school culture is established; expectations for performance, behavior, and routines are put into place; and staff decide whether or not they think the reform will “work” (Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, 2005; Mass Insight, 2007; Robinson & Buntrock, 2011; Salmonowicz, 2009). Using interview and focus-group data from teachers at 13 turnaround schools, we ask two related questions. First, what aspects of teachers’ working conditions matter most to teachers in the early stages of school turnaround? Second, how do school-level working conditions affect teacher support for the turnaround process? We find considerable variation across schools and organizational models in how teachers experienced the turnaround process. We further find that the variation that mattered most to teachers was in the domains of organizational function—particularly the level of consistency and institutional clarity—and organizational culture—particularly the ways teachers felt they were (or were not) supported and treated respectfully by school leaders. Finally, we argue that there are important, previously unrecognized, connections between teachers’ support for school turnaround and working conditions in their schools. While our focus is on turnaround, many teachers in high-poverty urban schools face challenging working conditions (Johnson et al., 2011). For this reason, our findings about the importance of teachers’ working conditions—and particularly the link between working conditions and support for reform—have broader implications for urban schools.
Background
The concept of school turnaround originated in the private sector as a set of strategies used to reorganize or rejuvenate ailing companies. In contrast to many approaches to reform, which assume that change happens incrementally, school turnarounds strive for quick and dramatic transformation. At its core, the approach assumes that real improvement can only occur when schools are freed from earlier patterns of failure and dysfunction. Thus, a turnaround involves replacing the principal, rehiring no more than 50% of the teachers, implementing new governance structures and curricula, and making other programmatic changes (U.S. Department of Education, 2009; see also Duke, 2012). Advocates of turnaround contend that in chronically failing schools, leadership is often inadequate and teachers lack the skills and the will to create meaningful change. Furthermore, they assert that systems of teacher support and evaluation in low-performing schools are not designed to facilitate improvements in classroom instruction and require complete overhaul (Calkins, Guenther, Belfiore, & Lash, 2007).
In 2010, the superintendent of a large urban district in the Northeastern United States launched an initiative that, consistent with federal guidelines for school turnaround, sought to transform its most challenging schools. The school district targeted 13 low-performing schools, all of which served predominantly low-income and minority populations, and placed them into one of five models (see Table 1). Six of the 13 became Dream Academies, 2 which were operated by a special office within the school district. The other seven were turned over to private organizations with experience running charter schools. Achieve Charter Schools managed three schools, Family Companies managed two, and Leaders in Learning and Excellence Academies each managed one. In all but two of the schools, principals were replaced, and the faculty in all schools was force transferred. To conform to federal guidelines, principals were allowed to rehire up to 50% of the staff; in reality, only 25% of Dream Academy teachers and 5% of charter teachers returned. 3 Although each provider implemented its own model, all involved intensive focus on instructional improvement, heavy use of student achievement data, targeted curriculum and extra supports for struggling students, and new systems for monitoring and improving teacher practice.
Turnaround Providers and Schools.
U.S. Department of Education. Numbers and percentages are rounded to protect the schools’ identities. Seventy-five percent of the students in this district were classified as low-income in 2010.
Authors’ designation.
An evaluation conducted in 2011, after the first year of the initiative, revealed a positive impact on student outcomes. Researchers compared student achievement and attendance at turnaround schools with similar performing schools and discovered that the turnaround schools improved to a significantly greater degree on both metrics than did comparison schools. 4 However, our data show considerable variation in the initiative’s impact on teachers’ working conditions, suggesting that some schools may be less likely to sustain these outcomes over time. Indeed, test score and attendance data provide little information about what structures and practices are effective and, particularly, what conditions enable teachers to do the hard work of school turnaround.
Literature Review: Teachers’ Working Conditions
Research on teachers’ working conditions examines how social and organizational conditions within schools affect teachers’ and students’ experiences, calling particular attention to those aspects of schools as organizations that may be amenable to policy changes. According to Johnson (1990, 2006), working conditions are shaped by the interplay between a school’s physical features, the rules and lines of authority that govern teachers’ activities, and the social, cultural, political, psychological, and educational features of the work environment. In other words, the term working conditions refers to those factors—such as teaching assignments, class size, professional development, teaching materials and supplies, principal leadership—that determine what it means to teach in a particular school and that, research has shown, have significant consequences for teacher satisfaction and effectiveness.
Scholars examining teachers’ working conditions have emphasized such features as the importance of teacher decision-making power and autonomy (Renzulli, Macpherson-Parrott, & Beattie, 2011), principal leadership (Grissom, 2011; Ladd 2011), opportunities for professional growth and development (Johnson, 2006), and class size (Bascia & Rottman, 2011). Research has also considered how working conditions mediate the recruitment and retention of teachers (Ingersoll, 2003; Ladd, 2011), teacher satisfaction and efficacy (Allensworth et al., 2009; Johnson et al., 2011), as well as student achievement (Johnson et al., 2011; Ladd, 2011). In a recent study of a class-size reduction initiative, Bascia and Rottman (2011) connect teachers’ perceptions with student learning: Teaching conditions do seem to affect teachers’ emotions, their perceptions of self-efficacy and their commitment to remaining in their teaching assignments. But more than this, primary teachers felt successful [as a result of the class size reduction initiative] because they saw changes in students’ opportunities to learn. (pp. 797-798)
This body of work suggests that research on school reform should pay close attention to the ways particular strategies shape teachers’ working conditions. This is especially true for school turnaround reforms, which must quickly reshape workplace conditions to build capacity for change and improvement.
Our analysis of teachers’ experiences with the early stage of school turnaround was heavily informed by the extant literature on working conditions. However, as described below, we chose a more inductive analytic approach, beginning with the teachers’ descriptions of their experiences rather than with a preconceived set of assumptions about what would “matter” to them. While teachers in our sample referred to many of the features Johnson includes in her definition of teacher working conditions (2006), their comments focused on two central domains: first, the routines, procedures, and expectations (and the extent to which these were stable or volatile) that shaped their work and, second, the quality of the relationships among teachers and between teachers and administrators, and the degree to which teachers felt supported and respected. In our discussion below, we call these two domains organizational function and organizational culture. 5 In making these claims, we are both drawing on and modifying the ways scholars have described teachers’ working conditions to most accurately reflect our data on teachers in turnaround schools. Of course, many of the components of teachers’ working conditions are overlapping; they interact with each other and, at times, can be difficult to specify with precision (Ladd, 2011). In particular, functional and cultural features are intertwined, because features of the organizational function will determine the strength and relative supportiveness of the culture, and the culture will affect how the organization operates in myriad ways. Although, for clarity’s sake, our discussion of teachers’ experiences distinguishes between the impact of organizational and cultural factors, we hope the reader will see how both sets of factors interact to shape teachers’ experiences in turnaround schools.
Methods
This paper is part of a larger study, conducted by Research for Action, on the early implementation of a school-turnaround initiative. 6 This larger study incorporated quantitative and qualitative data collected during two main periods: start-up (March 2010-August 2010) and early implementation (September 2010-January 2011). The qualitative data on early implementation were gathered during day-long visits to each of the 13 schools in fall 2010. On each visit, two- or three-person teams conducted interviews and focus groups, observed classrooms, and collected relevant documents, with the goal of documenting the schools’ missions, organizational practices, and early successes and challenges. 7 For this analysis, we focus on data from interviews and focus groups conducted with teachers during these visits. Of the approximately 525 teachers in the turnaround schools, 86 (16%) participated. 8 These participants were selected by the principal, who also arranged all meetings and tours. 9 Sixty-two of the participants were new to the school, and 24 had taught there the previous year.
The interviews and focus groups were taped and transcribed. The data were originally coded using ATLAS ti as a part of the larger study. Because we were interested in how teachers experienced the early stages of the reform, we recoded all teacher interviews and focus-group data. Our new coding focused specifically on teachers’ perspectives and on the connections teachers made between school working conditions and their successes, challenges, and overall view of the model.
In our analysis, we looked within schools (to discern the “character” of each school as a workplace) and across schools (to identify factors that emerged in multiple settings). As our analysis continued and the contrasts between schools became clearer, we divided the schools into three groups—schools where teachers generally spoke positively about their working conditions (the “positive” group), schools where teachers’ comments were overwhelmingly negative (the “challenging” group), and schools where teachers’ responses fell somewhere in between (the “mixed” group)—and identified themes within each subset of schools. In the positive (four schools) and challenging groups (five schools), there were such strong similarities among the schools that a teacher’s comment from one school in the group often appeared interchangeable with those from another in that group. 10 Indeed, as Johnson et al. (2011) observed, those elements of teachers’ working conditions that teachers name as the most important are interdependent and tend to cluster in the same schools. For these reasons, our discussion of the variation in working conditions across the turnaround schools focuses on contrasts between the positive and challenging schools, although some of the insights also apply to the other four schools.
Once we had created these groupings, we looked within each category to discern those aspects of their working conditions that mattered the most to teachers—the factors about which the teachers spoke most frequently and most forcefully. In this process, we identified sets of issues that appeared to characterize teachers’ experiences at the schools in each category—instability and a lack of support at the challenging schools, and consistency in programming, clarity about instructional expectations, and support for improvement at the positive schools. Finally, we looked within and across schools to assess teachers’ level of support for the turnaround. We identified a particular comment as “supportive” if it expressed a positive sentiment about the model as teachers were experiencing it and/or the school’s future prospects. Supportive comments were also those in which teachers made connections between school turnaround and specific school improvements. We then documented the associations between those schools whose working conditions we labeled as positive or challenging and the degree of teacher support for the turnaround process.
Findings
At all schools, teachers described their work as extremely rigorous, emphasizing long hours and multiple demands (for raising test scores, addressing students’ emotional needs, and implementing new programs). They spoke of feeling proud that they were on the “front lines of educational reform in the USA” (Dalton) and of their own commitment to their students. They also applauded their colleagues’ hard work. Thus, one teacher at a Dream Academy observed, “These teachers pour their hearts and souls out, every single one of them every day, just giving everything they’ve got” (Dansville).
However, there were important differences, many of which, we argue here, are rooted in the quality of working conditions within the schools. In the schools we have identified as having positive working conditions, teachers appreciated the organizational stability and clear focus on instruction and climate as well as the supportive culture developed by administrators. In the challenging schools, teachers were frustrated by constant changes to programs and schedules, disrespectful treatment from administrators, and their own sense of powerlessness. While these are complex dynamics, it appears that one of the key sources of variation had to do with organizational function—the level of stability in schedules and programming and the degree of clarity about instruction and other expectations within the school. Another was around organizational culture—the extent to which there were clearly defined norms and shared expectations, and teachers felt they were supported and treated as professionals. Finally, we demonstrate that teachers’ perceptions of their working conditions also had implications for their support of the turnaround process.
There is no doubt that leadership was essential here; as Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, and Easton (2010) observe, leadership is the “catalyst” that sets other supports for school improvement in motion. In most contexts, school-level leadership is critical, with principals establishing and maintaining expectations, routines, and structures. This was less important in the schools in our sample, however, because of the powerful role the providers (those organizations charged with managing the turnaround schools) played. Thus, the leadership that mattered here was at the provider level, where supervisors created and maintained organizations that were more or less coherent, orderly, and supportive. For this reason, our analysis does not focus on principals per se. 11 Rather, we focus on the organizational qualities of the schools, emphasizing the extent to which these qualities were shaped by the providers, whose leaders bore the primary responsibility for ensuring that the turnaround was successful.
Organizational Function: Stability and Clarity Versus Frequent Changes and Mixed Messages
Each of the schools in this study was run by a provider, whether a special unit within the district’s central administrative office or a charter school organization, and each provider had its own approach to reform. As a result, the components of the provider’s model, the decisions of administrators, and the details of curriculum and programming shaped teachers’ experiences in profound ways. We use the term organizational function here not to refer to a particular administrative arrangement or distribution of power. Rather, we are attempting to capture the organization’s smoothness of operation, clarity of roles and expectations, and institutionalization of key values and priorities, as these appeared to be of particular importance to teachers in the turnaround context.
Positive schools: “Everything is very, very clear.”
At the positive schools, leaders put systems in place (e.g., for teacher professional development and evaluation, peer support, and student discipline), and teachers knew what to expect. They were able to plan ahead and counted on structures and supports when they needed them. There was also clarity of focus, whether it was on instruction, as at three of the schools, or on climate, as at one of the schools.
Teachers at the positive schools spoke of them as organized, relatively predictable places. For example, a teacher who had taught at Laval in previous years contrasted his earlier time at Laval with his experiences under the turnaround model: “[Last year] it didn’t seem like everyone was on the same page. . . . One dean said one thing, another dean said another thing. Now, when it comes to climate and discipline and culture, everybody is on the same page.” Achieve Charter Schools’ teachers made similar points: “There are clear cut goals and everything is laid out what you need to achieve or what you need to work on” (Aberdeen). This consistency allowed teachers to remain focused on their work and, as we will see below, created a strong workplace culture.
Teachers at the positive schools were especially appreciative that organizational leaders had spelled out expectations and procedures in advance at the orientation. An Achieve teacher exclaimed, “Every single thing was explained to us in detail. It was modeled. . . . It was like—honestly every question you had was eventually answered in the 3 days. I felt like that was wonderful!” (Aberdeen). Like the Achieve teachers, those at Laval said that the training had truly prepared them for the school year. One teacher compared her experience as a new teacher at the school the previous year with the level of support that was laid out in advance in the turnaround year, noting that whereas last year “it was chaos,” under the turnaround model new teachers “should be perfectly fine” (Laval).
Teachers also appreciated the consistent messages they received about what was important. At the schools run by Achieve, these messages emphasized rigorous, engaging instruction. Thus, when asked how prepared she felt to begin the school year, one teacher responded quite positively: I felt prepared because orientation was weeks of sitting there with your book, and [learning], this is the people that you can go to, this is the standards, this is the way you are going to do instruction…this is how everything is going to be set-up, this is your lesson plan, this is an example of a great lesson plan. Everything was given to you, so that way you had access to everything you needed. (Andrews)
These schools transformed the notion of a “laserlike focus on instruction” from a reform cliché to an institutional reality. Administrators consistently reminded teachers about the importance of high expectations “across the board” and the need to use every moment of classroom time well.
Teachers at Laval also received consistent messages from administrators about what was important. In the years before the reform, Laval had a particularly challenging climate—indeed, teachers at Laval recalled being warned about the school. 12 For this reason, the major focus over the first several months was creating a more positive school culture: “The first two weeks we were here, that’s all we talked about was culture and how we were going to change the school culture and how we were going to affect the kids with culture.” Teachers at Laval praised new routines put in place by administrators, such as morning assemblies focused on building community within the school, and noted, “There’s a lot more structure, a lot more support” for creating a positive school climate.
Challenging schools: “It’s like the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing”
One of the most striking findings was the sheer level of instability that characterized the more challenging schools. Presumably, much of this was due to the fact that data were collected in the first months of the school year, when the schools were refining their systems and responding to unexpected challenges. Yet, those first months clearly felt very long to teachers, who spoke with evident frustration about their inability to plan ahead and the inconsistent and often conflicting messages they received from administrators.
At the five turnaround schools with especially challenging working conditions, daily schedules and other routines changed often. This instability was particularly frustrating to teachers because they were expected to be prepared each day and often found that, as a result of changing plans, the work they had done was useless. In a focus group at one Dream Academy, teachers bemoaned how frequently school and provider leaders changed the schedule to accommodate different procedures and groupings, the implementation of new programs, and efforts to address problems with school culture: “Literally most days you don’t know what your day looks like until about 7:55. There’s about zero consistency, and there has been about zero consistency for the past month and a half. . . . If you have any issue with stress, you might as well leave the building” (Dansville). The same issue came up at another Dream Academy. When the interviewer asked what advice teachers had for the school district’s next set of turnarounds, a teacher immediately responded, “I know that teachers have to be flexible, but I would like to see more thought put into how they deliver information and when. We don’t need to know at 8 a.m. that we have to do something that day. You would have a more productive staff if you would let people know ahead” (Derby). In a focus group at another school, a teacher was so angered by the constant schedule changes, that when asked what it meant to be a good teacher in his school, he responded bitterly, extending his critique to administrators’ demand that he participate in the focus group itself: For instance, I am upset that we were pulled from [a professional development about special education procedures] that we could use, to be here for this focus group. No one informed us about this focus group, and I still don’t really know why I’m here.… So, honestly, I would say a good teacher is someone who doesn’t work for Family Companies. (Franklin)
To these teachers, a continually changing schedule significantly undermined morale and efficacy in the classroom; teachers needed an orderly predictable environment not just because it was less stressful but also because it was most conducive to successful teaching.
In addition to the daily instability, teachers felt undermined by unclear or conflicting expectations from administrators. For some teachers, this had to do with the disconnections between their school-level administrators and supervisors from the organization managing the turnaround. Thus, one teacher complained, The messages we are getting are not consistent. . . . It’s like the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. When Family [Companies] tells us something, then the [school] administrators tell us something else, we feel like, “That is not what Family just told us. Who do we go to? Who do we follow?” (Franklin)
At other schools, teachers felt that they were held responsible for expectations that had not been communicated. As a result, a teacher lamented, “Everything happened after the fact, and then we’re getting blamed!” (Derby). These comments suggest that the lack of clarity about expectations was troubling to teachers seeking guidance at the start of the school year.
Organizational Culture: Support and Respect Versus Powerlessness and Disrespect
The schools also varied with regard to the quality of their social relations, particularly the relations between teachers and administrators. Research has shown that teachers place great importance on a trusting, supportive work environment (Bryk & Schneider, 2002). Indeed, this may matter even more to teachers than such basic issues as adequate facilities or resources (Johnson et al., 2011). The supportiveness of a school’s culture promotes commitment rather than compliance (Johnson, 1990). While teachers in this study certainly looked to their colleagues for support, not all schools were characterized by respectful relations between teachers and the host of administrators, at the school and provider level, whose job it was to monitor teachers and facilitate school improvement.
Positive schools: “It’s an open door”
In the schools with positive working conditions, teachers spoke enthusiastically about their relationships with administrators. Though the expectations for them were high, they felt that the administrators respected them and were there to help. In these schools, there was no doubt that the administrators were “in charge” (recall that these were also schools where routines and policies were well-established at the outset). However, teachers’ comments about administrators at the school and provider levels suggest that they saw them as focused on supporting teachers rather than ensuring compliance.
Teachers appeared particularly grateful for the ways administrators’ focus on improving instruction manifested in their work with teachers. When asked about what sorts of instructional support the administrators provided, one Achieve teacher responded immediately and emphatically: I think it’s received from all the administrators. We’re observed a significant amount of times over the year and it will be through various administrators so you have a different perspective from each one and kind of put them all together. There’s time set aside to review your observation and discuss what are the things that you did well and what are the things that we can improve on to really improve our instruction. (Aden)
This teacher identified several components of the observation process, all of which she saw as aimed at creating meaningful instructional improvement. First, each teacher was observed by different people, providing multiple perspectives on his or her practice. Indeed, administrators at Achieve schools visited classrooms frequently, providing immediate feedback to teachers. Second, the school set aside time for teachers to review and reflect on the observation. Finally, the process emphasized putting these insights into practice. Her conclusion, that this will “really improve our instruction” shows just how valuable she found the process. Here, the organizational features that determine how teaching is supervised establish conditions that allow teachers to feel effective. This is an important element in promoting a strong school culture.
Similarly, a number of teachers at Laval mentioned the “master teachers” who were there to help improve their practice and also appreciated the support they received around classroom management issues. As one teacher exclaimed, “I have never heard of anyone having an issue where they needed a dean and there’s been no one available. Even if your dean isn’t there, there’s three other deans that can help you out.” Because school culture had been such a problem at Laval, teachers saw the presence of deans, whose job it was to ensure that teachers could focus on instruction rather than management, as evidence of the school’s commitment to supporting teachers.
Teachers at these schools also appreciated the respectful stance they believed administrators took toward them. A teacher described the administration as “an open door,” continuing, “You can talk to the principal, vice principal, other teachers freely. You don’t have to worry about anything being held against you. If you need help, they’ll help you. If they can’t do it, they will send somebody to help you” (Aberdeen). A teacher who had been at Aden before the turnaround made a similar point, highlighting the respect he felt from administrators (and the contrast with his previous experiences): For all the hard work that you do here, there is a positive air in the building. And, speaking from being exposed to both sides, the school district and also the administration here– you’re always told that you are valued here. [In the past] you always felt that you were more or less the cause of the problem rather than just the solution to the problem. But here you are considered the solution to the problem and everyone here is trying really hard to be that solution. (Aden)
Teachers at Laval also believed that school leaders were supportive of teachers and responsive to their concerns. A Laval teacher explained that she and her colleagues had “an informal relationship with our principal and vice principal.” She continued, “[the administrators] are always around so if everyone is talking about something, they’re hearing it. They kind of know when people have an overwhelming problem.” In these schools, teachers saw administrators as focused on helping them succeed in their important work—rather than on ensuring compliance.
Below, we will argue that teachers in the challenging schools often felt disempowered and helpless in the face of policies and procedures about which they had no input. These feelings were reflective of an unsupportive, compliance-oriented culture. The contrast with the positive schools in this domain is instructive. At the positive schools, teachers did not help shape policy in any substantive way. However, the culture of respect within the schools was such that when teachers did disagree with a particular decision or procedure, they felt able to discuss this with administrators. Thus, a teacher at Aberdeen enthused, I think we have trust, which is wonderful. . . . They explain when they’re implementing things exactly why they’re doing it. But at the end, if you have a concern, if this isn’t working, they listen to you—not to just listen to you and blow you off, but they honestly listen to you. If they think that maybe you could tweak or do something differently in order to help your students, it’s absolutely supported. It’s something that I really appreciate.
This teacher flagged the difference between the performance of listening, in which administrators make a pretense of attending and then “blow you off” and what she saw at Aberdeen, which involved actually incorporating teachers’ concerns and trusting them enough to give them some level of flexibility. The trust she describes is a crucial element in developing the shared vision characterizing strong school cultures. While research on working conditions has shown that teachers often seek greater levels of input into school policy, teachers at these schools—perhaps because it was so early in the school year—did not necessarily want to be making key decisions. However, they did value support from leaders and the ability to make changes to their own practice. Because they were the ones working with the students, this ability to use their professional judgment and “tweak” established routines and expectations to best meet their students’ needs was essential.
Challenging schools: “We as teachers have no power.”
Teachers’ work at the challenging schools was shaped by a lack of control over their practice and what they experienced as disrespectful treatment by administrators. Interviews and focus groups conducted at these schools revealed high levels of discontent, as teachers struggled to retain their focus on students and their own sense of professionalism in the face of what many saw as an unsupportive school culture and expectations that were irrelevant to the real work of teaching students. In this context, teachers relied heavily on each other for emotional support because they were, in the words of one teacher, “getting crapped on by the administration” (Finley).
As noted earlier, there were five turnaround models at work; each of the four private providers had its own model, as did the school district. While in one school, teachers developed their own instructional materials, in all others, they were expected to use prescribed curricula. Indeed, all the models involved significant management of teachers’ practice: teachers were expected to comply with a host of demands about classroom displays, instructional routine, management, test preparation, and the use of data. In the five schools we have identified as having particularly challenging working conditions, teachers experienced considerable tension between what they were mandated to do by administrators and what they believed would help their students.
Classroom displays were a key point of dissension. Each provider in this sample devoted a great deal of attention to using visuals to convey expectations for student behavior and achievement. Halls were typically dotted with signs—college pennants interspersed with reminders about proper hallway behavior or the importance of hard work and determination. The emphasis on using displays to create a sense of uniformity and high expectations extended to the classrooms, where signs delineated everything from the hand signals students should use to communicate agreement to vocabulary words, the number of students proficient on various assessments, and the school’s mission.
While the teachers in challenging schools did not necessarily disagree with these messages, they did object to such strict mandates about their classroom walls. Thus, one Dream Academy teacher complained, “I think that a lot of the things that they are enforcing for Dream Academies in general, I just think that they are a waste of time. Like all of these, we have to have a million and one things in our rooms. I don’t think that helps the kids, it just looks like clutter” (Derby). A teacher at another Dream Academy made a similar point when she talked about administrators who monitored teachers’ classrooms: “I feel as though they are evaluating what is on my walls more so than they’re evaluating what is coming out of my mouth” (Dawson). This teacher had strong beliefs about what should appear on classroom walls and wanted students to feel a sense of ownership over the displays. However, she was forced to compromise these beliefs for fear of being penalized by administrators: “Yesterday it was just like, I’m going to throw this up on the wall, and it kind of was contradictory of everything I have ever been as a teacher” (Dawson). To these teachers, administrators were unnecessarily fixated on classroom displays, a fixation that distracted attention from more important issues and contributed to the negative culture of the school.
Along the same lines, teachers in the challenging schools complained about a curriculum they saw as overly scripted. As one teacher noted, this made it difficult to respond to students’ needs for fear of getting “tagged,” or reprimanded: Everything is scripted—5 minutes here, 5 minutes there. If you don’t get one done you have to move on to the next one because if an administrator comes to observe you—at x time you are supposed to be at this particular point. If you are not at that point then you get tagged. (Dawson)
Like the teacher quoted above, who changed her displays to comply with mandates, this teacher was forced to adhere to a pacing schedule she felt was not appropriate for fear of being “written up.” Another teacher made a similar point: I have so many artistic kids, but you can’t use that because it is not in the curriculum, not in the guide that I have to read through. I have to carry [the teachers’ manual] with me because, apparently, I’m not able to recite the definition of alliteration unless I have a book in my hand. (Derby)
Many teachers at these schools spoke of their desire to draw more heavily on their professional knowledge. Thus, in response to a question about what it means to be a good teacher at her school, one teacher responded, I think what it means to be a good teacher is different than what we do here. Here what it means to be a good teacher is getting all the things on your mandatory checklist and doing everything that you are told to do. That is what the culture is here. But, I wouldn’t agree with that.
She continued, distinguishing her vision for good teaching from her provider’s: I would say that a good teacher is someone who has room within his or her own classroom to be accountable, meet the standards with YOUR group of students, and you, as a professional, have room to make those decisions with the support of, and together with, your colleagues, your administration, your district, everyone. Instead of just following a checklist. (Derby)
These teachers felt demeaned by the expectation that they simply “follow orders” and frustrated that so many of the mandates seemed inappropriate or counterproductive.
Teachers’ sense of powerlessness was compounded by what they saw as disrespectful treatment by school- and provider-level administrators. For example, teachers at Dansville were angered by the consequences they faced for not adhering to what they saw as an unrealistic instructional timeline. While they sought support, instead they were “met with memos if you are not staying on your pacing guide,” a practice they found “very discouraging” (Dansville). Another teacher reported that an administrator told her, “You better be on this page [of the teachers’ manual] when I come to the room. You better have the book in your arms as you’re teaching” (Derby). At other schools teachers had similar grievances, noting that administrators “yelled at” them, and worrying about getting “written up” or “in trouble.” To these teachers, administrators’ disrespectful treatment and focus on ensuring compliance created what often felt like a hostile working environment.
Teachers in the challenging schools also complained bitterly about the practice of administrator “walkthroughs,” periodic visits that were intended to monitor teachers’ practice and ensure they were adhering to the providers’ requirements. Their complaints represent a marked contrast with the sentiment among teachers at the more positive schools that frequent observations by administrators were helpful. Teachers objected to the walkthroughs for several reasons: they were rarely accompanied by constructive or positive feedback, they focused largely on superficial issues (e.g., whether or not the mandated displays were on the walls), and the administrators conducting these walkthroughs were often rude to the teachers. Thus, one teacher at Dansville described her experience with administrators from the central headquarters “barking” at her in front of her students. In other instances, there was no interaction at all. As a Dalton teacher observed, “They come in. They take notes. They walk out. . . . We don’t hear back.” Other teachers spoke of them as “punitive” and focused on ensuring compliance with arbitrary mandates rather than real instructional improvement. Here, we see how the elements of organizational function and culture are mutually reinforcing. Whereas the teachers at the supportive schools—bolstered by clear expectations and institutional support—saw frequent observations as evidence of a commitment to their practice, those at the challenging schools—undermined by shifting expectations, instability, and disrespect—saw them as yet another threat.
In theory, school turnarounds replace an ineffective staff with a more skilled and committed group of teachers. Yet to the teachers in these challenging schools, administrators were still operating from a deficit model, assuming that without constant monitoring the new teachers would also fail the students. Though teachers sought to be treated as professionals and to exercise their professional judgment over their practice, they were largely disappointed in this regard. Importantly, we are not claiming that teachers in the positive schools had greater autonomy or that these schools had the sort of “professional culture” teachers often desire. Indeed, teachers’ work at those schools was carefully managed as well. However, a key difference appears to be that in the positive schools, teachers felt administrators were working with them to help the students. In contrast, in the challenging schools teachers often saw themselves as operating in opposition to administrators who distrusted and devalued them. Here again, we see the importance of leadership—within the school and from the provider organizations—in shaping school culture.
Working Conditions and Support for Turnaround
At all the turnaround schools in this sample, teachers spoke of beginning the year enthusiastic about turnaround as a reform strategy; indeed, many teachers applied to their schools because they had such high hopes for the process. For example, one teacher at a Dream Academy noted, “I came to Durant because I felt like the Dream Academy model is kind of why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place. The idea of putting the onus on schools, it seemed like a good fit.” A teacher at Laval made a related point, “I heard of a lot of changes that were going to take place and I was anxious to be a part of that.” At all schools, teachers were able to identify successes at their sites that they attributed to the turnaround reform. While successes varied across schools, teachers noticed improvements related to school climate, student attendance, teacher dedication, and even early academic gains. Even at the most challenging schools, teachers described some positive impact on the students. However, there are important distinctions between teachers’ views of the idea of turnaround and their views of the actual reform they were experiencing. We use the phrase support of the model here not to refer to general approval of turnaround as a reform strategy. Rather, we are describing support for the model teachers actually experienced.
Teachers in schools with positive working conditions expressed far more favorable views of the reform than those in schools with challenging conditions. This should not be surprising. As Bascia and Rottman (2011) observe, the school-level factors that teachers value tend to be the ones they see as facilitating their ability to do their job well. Thus, teachers who believed that the leadership and organizational conditions within their school were supportive of their work also believed that the reforms would be successful. Alternatively, teachers who were frustrated by chaotic and disrespectful working environments felt their efficacy in the classroom was undermined and had serious doubts about the reforms. The relationship between teachers’ comments about their schools as workplaces and their confidence in the reform model was striking. In our sample, not a single teacher in a school we labeled as having challenging working conditions offered an optimistic assessment of the turnaround process; in contrast, most teachers in the positive schools were quite sanguine. There was also, not surprisingly, a strong connection between teachers’ confidence in their particular providers and their support for the turnaround process.
“It’s definitely worked”: Strong support at schools with positive working conditions
At the positive schools, teachers had faith in the reform model, in school- and provider-level leaders, and in their own and their colleagues’ ability to influence student learning. Through clear systems and structures to support students and teachers, positive schools were able to establish stability and eliminate the dysfunction that had characterized the schools prior to the turnover. Early visible improvements in school climate, as well as reliable systems for teacher development, gave teachers confidence in the reform. One teacher stated, It’s definitely worked, and I remember saying from day one that you could just tell there was a huge difference in the community and the kids. They were excited about coming back to school, not dreading it. It’s worked, it’s great and I would suggest that if Achieve can do more schools then they should do it because it’s definitely positive. (Aberdeen)
This teacher’s experience with immediate improvements in school culture translated into support for further replication of the model.
The level of stability and consistency teachers experienced at the positive schools was extremely important during the start-up of the turnaround process. Teachers felt certain their provider organizations and administrators were up to the task and believed there was a solid rationale for existing rules and routines. An experienced teacher at an Achieve school linked improvements she saw in the school directly to the Achieve model for turning around schools and helping teachers (even those new to the profession) succeed: “I would also say that they might be new teachers, but Achieve has done a fantastic job of finding new and old teachers who are mission-aligned. They’re really all about student achievement, putting students first” (Aden). All the schools slated for turnaround had long histories of poor academic performance and major problems with school culture. Given the difficult tasks teachers at these schools faced, the belief that their school was run by an organization with the capacity to provide necessary supports and enable teachers to focus on student learning was an important source of support for the turnaround process.
“The effectiveness is not good”: Skepticism at challenging schools
Teachers in the challenging schools demonstrated wavering support for the turnaround model as they experienced it. Too much instability early in the year and a sense of powerlessness ultimately diminished teachers’ confidence in the reform. One teacher noted, “The idea can work. It just needed more proper planning and more support” (Dansville). An experienced teacher explained that the instability was problematic for the many novice teachers in turnaround schools, “I would say the first thing would be to iron out all kinks. Because if I was a new teacher, I would be overwhelmed, only because each week there’s some more things thrown at you” (Dawson).
For many others, there was a real sense of disappointment about the failure of leaders to deliver the programs and supports they promised. Teachers asserted, “I came here because I was told certain things [would happen] that aren’t happening now” (Finley). These teachers went on to describe enrichment programs and extended learning opportunities that were theoretically part of the model but had failed to materialize. Teachers’ support for the model was also weakened by their experiences with spotty or inadequate professional development and administrator walkthroughs they saw as punitive and ineffective. A teacher at Derby stated, “We are not getting the support that we need to teach our students.” A Franklin teacher made a similar point, noting that the reform model should not expand in the near future because, “We [teachers] don’t even have the resources we need. There should be more instructional support.” Her comment contrasts sharply with the Achieve teacher, quoted above, who believed that Achieve should try to turn around even more schools.
In the positive schools, leaders established systems that provided the stability teachers needed to be effective, giving them confidence in the school and the turnaround process more broadly. Conversely, leaders at the challenging schools did not create clear and established routines (and the systems that were in place focused on elements, such as classroom displays, that seemed trivial to teachers). The frequent changes that resulted as leaders in these schools tried to hone their systems diminished teachers’ faith in the school and the model and interfered with their instruction. The teachers’ dissatisfaction in these challenging schools was rooted partially in their sense that they were simply difficult places to work. However, it was also rooted in a broader belief that the very things that made the schools unpleasant for teachers would also impede student learning and the success of the model.
Discussion
As the preceding discussion has shown, teachers’ experiences with school turnaround varied significantly from school to school. These variations were not linked to school size, school level (i.e., elementary vs. high school), or to the students’ poverty levels. Rather, they were related to characteristics of the turnaround model as it was implemented in each setting, particularly the degree to which teachers experienced the school as stable and organized and the culture as respectful and supportive. As noted earlier, organizational function and culture do not operate as independent domains. Instead, the features of an organization’s function help shape its culture. At the same time, the organization’s culture—particularly the extent to which members trust and respect one another—affects how smoothly an organization functions and how well it is able to respond to day-to-day challenges (Bryk & Schneider, 2002).
To a large extent, teachers’ experiences varied by provider: for example, teachers at the three Achieve Charter schools and the one Leaders in Learning school were generally positive about their environments, while those at the two Family Companies schools were negative. This shows that the leaders at some organizations were more effective than others at creating conditions that felt positive for teachers. However, there was some variation among the Dream Academy schools; two (Dalton and Drummond) had more mixed working conditions, while the other four were extremely challenging. Though we do not explore this variation here, we suspect that it is due to school-level leadership, with the Dalton and Drummond principals more skilled at protecting their teachers from the negative elements of the Dream Academy model. While all schools experienced gains in student achievement during the first year, the variations we have documented—across and within models—speak to the possibility that some would be more able to sustain this progress than others.
Our findings about teachers’ experiences offer an important counterpoint to the extant literature on school turnarounds. For example, the key insights that emerge from our data (i.e., the importance of a well-functioning organizational system, in which priorities are institutionalized and teachers feel respected and valued) do not appear in the Institute for Educational Sciences’ report on “what works” in school turnaround (Herman et al., 2008). Work on turnaround has identified teacher “buy in” or commitment to the model as important, but it has treated these factors as a function of school leaders’ ability to convince staff change is possible (Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, 2005; Robinson & Buntrock, 2011; Salmonowicz, 2009). Our findings demonstrate the limits of this approach. Most teachers in this study had originally “bought into” the reform: they believed in the work the schools were trying to do. However, for those in the challenging schools, their support could not be sustained in the face of dysfunctional working conditions.
Indeed, terms such as “buy in” have a static connotation: teachers either buy in or they do not. We have shown that teachers’ views of turnaround can change over time. In our data, teachers were actively negotiating their meaning making, incorporating new experiences and perceptions, and making predictions about the future. We suggest that turnaround leaders should focus less on convincing teachers that turnaround will work and more on providing a working environment conducive to success.
In other ways, our findings are consistent with the literature on successful turnarounds, which identifies strong leadership as crucial to early progress, because organizational function and culture are, ultimately, a manifestation of the quality of leadership (Baroody, 2011; Murphy, 2010). Yet, in the schools in this sample, issues of leadership may have played out slightly differently than in other turnaround contexts (e.g., Duke et al., 2005). At all the schools in our study, the “providers” (either the district’s special office or the charter managers) were intimately involved in the day-to-day operations at the school, issuing mandates, establishing systems and priorities, and monitoring teachers. For this reason, leadership in these schools seemed slightly more diffuse—while it was certainly not allocated to the teachers, neither was it solely in the hands of a single principal. Indeed, the decisive factor here appeared to be less the characteristics of the individual school leader and more the extent to which supervisors put into place systems that ensured the school ran smoothly and that teachers knew what was expected of them, felt respected, and had the support they needed. In turnaround schools run by provider organizations, it is leadership at the provider level that is particularly critical.
Our findings certainly resonate with the work of Johnson and colleagues that identifies the “social context of teachers’ work” as especially impactful for teacher satisfaction and student achievement (Johnson et al., 2011). In particular, our conclusions about organizational culture echo those of Johnson and colleagues, who define school culture as “the extent to which school environments are characterized by mutual trust, respect, openness, and commitment to student achievement” and argue that a positive culture is essential to teacher satisfaction and student achievement (p. 14). In our data, we see a fervent desire on the part of teachers to be treated as professionals and as “part of the solution.” Our findings also add to this literature by highlighting a feature of teacher working conditions not previously recognized: the extent to which the school is an organized, coherent, predictable place to work. It may be that the context in which turnaround teachers are operating—major reforms implemented quickly—makes this issue of stability versus turmoil more salient than in other schools. However, we expect that similar dynamics could be at work in start-up charter schools, a topic that is worth exploring further. Interestingly, other aspects of teachers’ working conditions that have been identified as important—such as class size or adequacy of resources—seemed not to matter as much in this context as organizational stability and a culture of respect. The ability to collaborate, another factor that research has found to matter to teachers, did emerge as an issue in our data. However, it appears to be less essential in the early stages (other than for moral support) than the other elements we have discussed here.
In the challenging schools, teachers’ experiences also resonate with the literature on the “intensification” of teachers’ work. As Apple and others have argued, in recent decades external forces have placed growing demands on teachers and subjected them to increasing levels of scrutiny, often leading to overwork, loss of control, and an overall de-skilling of teachers (Apple, 1986; Ballet & Kelchtermans, 2009). 13 For these teachers, the expectation that they achieve dramatic improvement quickly, combined with the strict controls over their practice and their own sense of powerlessness, created a context in which they felt overwhelmed and frustrated.
It is important to note that our data include only the first months of the turnaround process. While these early days are important, as they set the stage for the months and years to come, data collected then are not necessarily indicative of larger patterns of success or failure. It is certainly possible that schools with challenging working conditions early on could improve, just as schools with strong early practices could lose steam over time. Thus, our goal is not to make predictions about eventual outcomes but rather to show what mattered to teachers during those crucial early months. It is also important to note that the teachers in this study—selected as they were by principals—may have been more positive about their experiences overall than the larger population of turnaround teachers. This suggests the need for further research on teachers and turnaround.
Conclusion
As policy makers rely increasingly on school turnaround as a solution to chronic school failure, particularly in high-poverty urban areas, it will be essential to develop a better understanding of how the reform is experienced by various stakeholders. Our data on teachers’ experiences in the early stages of school turnaround serve as a reminder that, to a large extent, teaching conditions are learning conditions. In interviews and focus groups, teachers spoke positively about factors that helped them be more effective in the classroom and were critical of those they saw as interfering with their work.
Paying attention to teachers’ insights in this regard is essential for several reasons. First, research has shown that schools with more positive working conditions have lower teacher turnover (Ingersoll, 2003; Johnson et al., 2011; Ladd, 2011). Because high teacher turnover is one reason urban schools struggle, the possibility that the turnaround model could recreate the same conditions under new leadership (e.g., high turnover and organizational instability) raises questions about its ability to increase student learning (Trujillo, 2012). Second, there is a danger that the energy teachers brought to the first year of turnaround is impossible to maintain. As de la Torre and her colleagues (2012) have argued, “turning around chronically low-performing schools is a process rather than an event. It does not occur immediately when staff or leadership or governance structures are replaced, but can occur when hard work and resources are sustained over time” (p. 6). Our data point to some characteristics of turnaround schools that may support this long endeavor. Third, our conclusion that teachers who felt more positively about their working conditions were also more supportive of the turnaround process means that school leaders should see building teacher morale as about much more than communications or persuasion. Instead, they should invest time, energy, and resources into creating organizations characterized by stability, clarity, and an environment of respect and support, as it is in those contexts that turnaround teachers are more likely to feel that success is possible. In selecting providers for school turnaround, district leaders should pay particular attention to organizational leadership and its capacity for creating stable, predictable, and supportive working environments.
Our findings have several implications for urban education policy and practice. The recent focus on increasing test scores has pushed teachers’ concerns to the background, often positioning teachers’ needs in opposition to those of students. In our data, we hear teachers noting that working conditions are “good” when they feel supported and capable of being effective. In these schools, stability in systems—coupled with a supportive culture—allowed teachers to manage intense expectations and maintain their support for a reform that required them to work in new and demanding ways. Turnaround schools, and urban school reform more generally, cannot succeed without addressing teachers’ concerns and creating conditions that make teachers feel supported, respected, and capable in their work.
Footnotes
Author’s Note
The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Institute of Education Sciences or the U.S. Department of Education. The authors would like to thank Eva Gold, Kate Shaw, and the members of the Research for Action research team. The authors are also grateful to Annette Lareau, Judith Levine, and the anonymous reviewers of Urban Education for their helpful feedback on the manuscript.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding for this research was provided by the District’s Accountability Review Commission. The research was also supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant #R305B090015 to the University of Pennsylvania.