How to Motivate and Retain Strong Teachers? Findings from Los Angeles by Bruce Fuller, Anisah Waite and David Torres Iribarra

We know that schools lift student learning when they retain and motivate strong teachers. The loss of potent educators – especially young or once vigorous teachers – plagues schools across the nation. But how to best invigorate teachers, slowing the costly loss of staff, continues to divide reform activists and scholars alike. Our new study researches Los Angeles’ current effort to stem teacher turnover and informs the debate over whether to grant individual-level rewards to teachers or work to build stronger social cohesion across colleagues.

Major reform groups, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have placed great faith in rewarding individual teachers, based on their lone performance. Others opt to strengthen school leadership, teacher collaboration, and commitment among peers school-wide. So our team talked with 548 teachers across 13 schools in Los Angeles, campuses have historically suffered from high rates of turnover. Legal action led by the ACLU aimed to stabilize teaching staffs across these schools, given concern young teachers kept receiving ‘pink slips’ and pupils missed the chance of building supportive relationships with teachers. But how the L.A. Unified School District could best motivate teachers, young and old, was the pragmatic question that animated our inquiry.

We delved into teachers own sources of intrinsic motivation, stemming from their classroom teaching, ties with kids, or school-wide activities. This included their feeling of efficacy, the perception that one’s craft yields valued results, from boosting learning to stronger collaboration with colleagues. We also asked each teacher how frequently others recognized or praised their work, be it their peers, parents, or principal.

We soon turned to a core question – Do teachers experiencing stronger intrinsic motivation report a weaker inclination to leave their school, either in the coming year or five years out? That is, if school leaders can allocate riper individual-level rewards, do we observe less teacher turnover?

But first, we considered the alternative hypothesis advanced by other reform activists: the argument that greater social cohesion and shared commitments among teachers will better meliorate the problem of teacher turnover. To test this claim, we queried teachers about the leadership strengths of their principal, how much they trusted and respected their teacher-colleagues, and the degree to which peers shared a collective responsibility for lifting pupil achievement. Do teachers believe they work as lone wolves day to day, largely in isolation from one another, or do they feel part of unified team, immersed in a cohesive social organization in which most pull in the same direction? It turns out that reported levels of school cohesion vary by grade levels: elementary teachers see their campuses as more coherent, working in professional harmony with peers, than do high school teachers. Levels of intrinsic motivators – feeling efficacious and socially recognized – do not differ across grade levels. Six in 10 high school teachers said that they intend to leave for another school (or leave education entirely) within five years, compared with half of elementary teachers participating in the study.

We then empirically tested the relative strength of teachers’ intrinsic motivators versus reported social cohesion within their schools in shaping the likelihood of leaving. Overall, we discovered that perceived social cohesion better predicted teachers’ intentions of leaving their school in the coming year or five years out, compared with the weaker influence of intrinsic motivators on intended exit.

These findings hold implications for designers of teacher-incentive or school-wide efforts to build shared norms and commitments among staff members. Especially within high schools, we found that nurturing stronger trust and a collective commitment to lifting achievement may reduce turnover more effectively than simply awarding individual teachers discrete incentives. A related study found this is better achieved in small high schools – including charter and site-run pilot schools in L.A. – compared with the more fragmented social organization of large and traditional high schools.

Differing patterns emerged for elementary teachers. First, the strength of intrinsic motivators was not closely correlated with the perception of loose or tight social bonds with fellow teachers. The teacher’s own efficacy varied independently of her views of tight or weak social cohesion, on average, among elementary schools. Second, female elementary teachers reported being more likely to stay than male counterparts, except that teachers with a masters or advanced degree leaned toward leaving their present school.

We also found that across grade levels once a teacher has served in one school for 12 years or more, they are much more likely to remain, compared with peers with less tenure at their present schools. With greater experience, one’s commitment to the present school appears to grow stronger.

After setting aside elementary teachers we found that levels of intrinsic motivators – teachers’ efficacy and social recognition – were moderately correlated with reported levels of social cohesion inside one’s school. This is not surprising: the members of tighter communities may vocally recognize the efforts of peers more readily, offering feedback that echoes another member’s teamwork. At the same time, we found these two neighboring constructs – intrinsic rewards vis-à-vis social cohesion – operated independently and differently contributed to the odds of teacher exit or retention.

These findings add to a series of studies that dig into how organizational leaders strengthen the social cohesion of their firms, aiming to invigorate colleagues around a shared mission, often serving others in education, health care, and for-profit services. A wider set of such cases appears in Prof. Bruce Fuller’s recent book, Organizing Locally (University of Chicago Press, http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo19896811.html).

Author Biographies

Bruce Fuller, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, focuses on organizational behavior and how local firms interact with diverse families and children. His recent book is Organizing Locally: How the New Decentralists Improve Education, Health, and Trade (Chicago).

Anisah Waite is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Her work centers on education reform in urban districts, school organization, and social network analysis.

David Torres Irribarra is a researcher at the MIDE UC measurement center of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His main research interests are on the use of latent variable modeling for measurement and the theoretical foundations of assessment in the social sciences.