Students who go to schools where their teachers have a leadership role in decisionmaking perform significantly better on state tests, a new study finds.
But some of the leadership elements that are most related to student achievement are the ones that are least often implemented in schools.
罢丑补迟鈥檚 from the New Teacher Center鈥檚 Teaching, Empowering, Leading, and Learning survey, which asks questions about teaching, learning, and working conditions in schools. Richard Ingersoll, a professor of education and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and the report鈥檚 lead author, studied responses from 2011 to 2015, which included data from nearly 1 million teachers from more than 25,000 schools, in 16 states.
He looked at two aspects of leadership: Do school leaders have an instructional focus, in the sense that they place teaching and learning at the center of their decisionmaking? And are teachers included in that decisionmaking beyond the classroom?
Schools with the highest levels of instructional and teacher leadership rank at least 10 percentile points higher in both math and English/language arts on state tests, compared to schools with the lowest levels鈥攅ven after controlling for factors like school poverty, size, and location.
This is the first large-scale study that has linked teacher leadership to student test scores, Ingersoll said.
While the study shows a correlation, not a causation, it backs up what teacher-empowerment advocates have said for years: Teachers are closest to students, so they know what students need to improve.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not a surprise in the viewpoint of professions,鈥� Ingersoll said. 鈥淭he ideal, the theory behind professions鈥攎edicine, academia, dentistry鈥擺is that] these are experts, you don鈥檛 micromanage them, you give them a lot of voice in what they do, ... and then you hold them accountable. You do both.鈥�
Areas for Improvement
But Ingersoll found an imbalance between what elements of leadership correlate to increased student achievement and what schools are actually doing.
Overall, school leaders are more likely to focus on high instructional standards, teacher accountability, evaluations, and performance than on giving teachers voice and input into decisionmaking. In less than half of the schools surveyed did teachers feel comfortable raising issues and concerns that are important to them.
Yet while holding teachers to high instructional standards is strongly related to higher student achievement, so are elements of instructional leadership that give teachers more authority. Having an effective school improvement team composed of both administrators and teachers, and fostering a shared vision for the school, are both strongly related to higher achievement.
For instance, holding teachers to high standards and having an effective school improvement team correspond with 21 percentile-point and 14 percentile-point differences in schools鈥� math proficiency, respectively. Having consistent teacher evaluations is associated with about a 11 percentile-point difference in math proficiency.
In practice, though, teachers report having a substantial role in decisionmaking when it comes to classroom instruction, teaching techniques, and student grading, and less often with schoolwide decisions, like setting student-behavior policies, engaging in school improvement planning, and determining the content of professional-development programs.
But it turns out that two of the teacher leadership areas that have the strongest relationship to student achievement are related to schoolwide policy: being involved in school-improvement planning and establishing student conduct policies.
When teachers have a large role in school improvement planning, their schools rank more than 20 percentile points higher in ELA than schools where teachers have a small role in the planning. And the role of teachers in establishing student-discipline procedures is associated with a 11 percentile-point difference in that school鈥檚 ranking in math proficiency. Teacher voice in student behavioral and discipline decisions has more of an effect on academic success than teacher control over issues seemingly more tied to instruction, the study found.
罢丑补迟鈥檚 an area that needs more research, Ingersoll said. But he speculated that when teachers are enforcers of rules made by others鈥攔ules that they might not agree with鈥攊t may erode their relationship with their students. When teachers have discretion and authority, they are able to tailor discipline to individual students, he said.
鈥淭hey know the kids. One size doesn鈥檛 fit all,鈥� said Ingersoll, a former high school teacher. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 [better when] teachers have a voice in the culture of the place and some sense of ownership. ... Behavior and discipline stuff鈥攖hat鈥檚 huge. 罢丑补迟鈥檚 half your job.鈥�
鈥業nvigorating for the Profession鈥�
The study also found that educators in high-poverty schools report lower levels of both instructional and teacher leadership. For example, in just 8.5 percent of high-poverty schools do teachers have a role in selecting new teachers鈥攃ompared to about 18 percent of low-poverty schools. And in only 38 percent of high-poverty schools did educators on average say there was a school atmosphere of trust and mutual respect, compared to 50 percent of more affluent schools.
Ellen Moir, , said the report鈥檚 conclusions are 鈥渢he North star鈥� of what every school needs to be doing, particularly high-poverty schools, which already struggle with boosting teacher satisfaction and retention.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 invigorating for teachers to have these new roles and opportunities to be working side-by-side with school principals,鈥� Moir said. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 invigorating for the profession.鈥�
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Indeed, teachers who have leadership roles say that it has made their jobs more rewarding. Tiffany Bergen, who is a teacher-mentor at Linden Tree Elementary School in New York, N.Y., said she previously taught in a school where administrators were not receptive to teachers鈥� ideas. It shut down risk-taking, she said.
But at Linden Tree, all teachers have the opportunity to make decisions in all areas of the school鈥攆rom curriculum to homework to school beautification. Being able to share ideas that are then implemented in school policy, Bergen said, has strengthened her practice.
鈥淵ou want to do that more, you want to be that teacher who thinks outside of the box,鈥� she said.
And she sees a direct link between teacher leadership and student achievement: 鈥淚 think we have to model what we preach. If we want kids to be risk-takers, then we ourselves have to take risks in our teaching practices.鈥�
Still, for school leaders, incorporating teacher leadership might require a shift in thinking.
鈥淚 think every leader naturally micromanages things, and then you realize that a successful school doesn鈥檛 operate like that. You need to put trust in teachers,鈥� said Magdalen Neyra, the principal of the North Bronx School of Empowerment in New York. 鈥淎s we built the capacity for teacher leadership, I鈥檝e been able to slowly release things.鈥�
For example, at the North Bronx School, teacher-leaders have the autonomy to decide what professional learning teachers in the school need. (Something that only happens in about 12 percent of schools, according to Ingersoll鈥檚 study.)
鈥淔or me, it鈥檚 reflecting and saying, 鈥業 can鈥檛 do it all,鈥� finding the right people, and then just trusting them to take on the work,鈥� Neyra said. 鈥淚t鈥檒l be more effective鈥攊t鈥檚 more data, more information鈥攚hen it鈥檚 not just my viewpoint.鈥�
Of course, these findings are not a surprise to many educators and teacher-leadership advocates.
鈥淲hen the teacher roles are larger, the relationships are better, the student interest is higher, the student engagement is higher,鈥� said Ted Kolderie, the co-founder and a senior fellow at Education Evolving, who has advocated for teacher empowerment for decades. One of Education Evolving鈥檚 priorities is teacher-powered schools, where teachers have autonomy to make schoolwide decisions and take on shared leadership roles.
He referred to a saying by historian Paul Kennedy, which he paraphrased: The role of leadership is to create a climate of encouragement for innovation.
鈥淭his is such a perfect example of that conclusion,鈥� Kolderie said. 鈥淭his is the one thing that just solves all kinds of problems鈥攊t probably solves the teacher-quality problem, .鈥�
Charts via the New Teacher Center鈥檚 School Leadership Counts report