In this article, Susan Moore Johnson calls for a balanced approach to improving teaching and learning, one that focuses on both teachers and the contexts in which they work. Drawing on over a decade of research on the experiences of new teachers, Johnson...
In 1998, Massachusetts instituted a $20,000 Signing Bonus to address concerns about the supply of high-quality teachers. This article reports on a longitudinal, qualitative study of the experiences of 13 of the original 59 recipients of the Signing Bonus...
Where Teachers Thrive is based on interview studies conducted in fourteen high-poverty, urban schools. It focuses on the context of teachers’ work, examining why some schools failed to make progress, while others achieved remarkable results. It explores...
Teacher teams are increasingly common in urban schools. In this study, we an- alyze teachers’ responses to teams in six high-poverty schools. Teachers used two criteria to assess teams’ goodness of fit in meeting the demands of their work: whether their...
Purpose: We examine how uncertainty, both about students and the context in which they are taught, remains a persistent condition of teachers’ work in high-poverty, urban schools. We describe six schools’ organizational responses to these...
Background/Context: Over the past three decades, teacher turnover has increased sub- stantially in U.S. public schools, especially in those serving large portions of low-income students of color. Teachers who choose to leave high-poverty schools serving...
Many strategies to improve failing urban schools rest on efforts to improve leadership within the school. Effective school-based leadership depends not only on the activities of the principal, but also on teachers’ efforts to address...
