School Organizational Contexts, Teacher Turnover, and Student Achievement

Improvements in school leadership led to reductions in teacher turnover, as did increasing academic expectations, strengthening teacher relationships, and improving school safety, according to authors Matthew Kraft, William Marinell, and Darrick Shen-Wei Yee. Their report assesses the relationship between school organizational contexts, teacher turnover, and student achievement in NYC middle schools. To do so, they created four distinct dimensions of school climate, captured on the annual NYC School Survey. Interestingly, in addition to reducing teacher turnover, the authors that improved school safety and academic expectations were both associated with gains in student achievement. These results illustrate the importance of the organizational context in which teachers work and students learn as policymakers look to design reforms aimed at raising student achievement.