Research Library

The research team studies the relationship between school organizational contexts, teacher turnover, and student achievement in New York City (NYC) middle schools. Using factor analysis, they construct measures of four distinct dimensions of school climate captured on the annual NYC School Survey. They then identify credible estimates by isolating variation in organizational contexts within schools over time. The team finds that improvements in school leadership especially, as well as in academic expectations, teacher relationships, and school safety are all independently associated with corresponding reductions in teacher turnover. Increases in school safety and academic expectations also correspond with student achievement gains. These results are robust to a range of threats to validity suggesting that their findings are consistent with an underlying causal relationship.