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Research Brief

Collaborating To Reach NCLB Goals By Rhonda Barton

The 2005-2006 school year brings another major landmark under the No Child Left Behind Act: By the end of the year, every child must have a “highly qualified” teacher. “Many of the law’s supporters believe that this is the law’s most important mandate,” asserts Dale Mezzacappa, in a 2005 Education Writers Association special report. “Without consistently good teaching, students the law is most designed to help—poor, disadvantaged, minority—have little chance of making the kinds of gains needed to reach academic proficiency by 2014.”

The teacher quality requirement is prompting school districts across the country to focus more intently on high-quality professional development and to foster ways for teachers to work together to improve the learning of all students. A national survey on the implementation of NCLB, conducted by the Center on Education Policy, found that “many case study districts have developed comprehensive programs to directly train and support their teachers in an effort to meet the overarching NCLB goal of raising student achievement. Many of these programs include placing academic coaches in schools or creating means for teachers to work collaboratively, both in a focused effort to help teachers improve their instruction.”

The rationale for this move is based solidly in research. More than a decade ago, Kenneth W. Eastwood and Karen Seashore Louis stated unequivocally that a collaborative environment is the “single most important factor” in successful school improvement. Writing in the Journal of School Leadership, Eastwood and Louis argued that establishing an environment with collaborative problem solving and harmonious relationships “should be the first order of business” for principals and other change agents.

Recently, the role of collaboration in positive school change was highlighted in an evaluation of the first cohort of schools receiving Model School Initiative grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Jeffrey Fouts and his associates discovered “the degree to which the reinvention process moved forward in a school [in the second year of the three-year grant] was dependent on a number of factors, including an acceptance of the vision of a reinvented school, strong building leadership, district support, and the ability of adults in the school to work together successfully.” At the end of the funding cycle, Fouts said it was evident there was a “newfound value for collaborative practices” at many of the grantee schools and some teachers described improved collaboration as their “biggest accomplishment.”

In Maryland, a study of higher and lower success schools showed a marked difference in collaborative practices. In successful schools, teachers examined data and identified goals in a schoolwide collaboration. “There is a 'team mentality’ of working together to improve the abilities of students,” the study by W.D. Schafer and colleagues concludes. “Teaming occurs frequently in teaching, and teaming is also encouraged with other schools working on common instructional goals. Collaboration occurs with respect to the way in which the mission that guides instruction gets carried out, as well as the processes used to craft it initially.” In contrast, less successful schools were characterized by “a number of teacher cliques which make it difficult for collaboration as they work against each other and at cross purposes.”

Robert Garmston and Bruce Wellman also found that successful schools have teachers that are “undeniably interdependent.” They cite work by Karen Seashore Louis, Helen Marks, and Sharon Kruse that underscores the importance of collaboration—along with shared norms and values, a collective focus on student learning, deprivatized practice, and reflective dialogue. In high schools where teachers take collective responsibility for student achievement, students showed greater gains in core subjects. And, say Garmston and Wellman, “These outcomes were especially true for minority students and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds.”

However, Garmston and Wellman warn that collaboration and collegiality “doesn’t happen by chance; it needs to be structured, taught, and learned.” They point out that laying the groundwork for a collaborative culture is the job of school leaders “who realize that a collection of superstar teachers working in isolation cannot produce the same results as interdependent colleagues who share and develop professional practices together.”

Other research has shown that teacher collaboration yields benefits for both inexperienced and veteran teachers. Morton Inger emphasizes that this is especially the case for urban schools. “For beginning teachers, this collegiality saves them from the usual sink-or-swim, trial-and-error ordeal,” writes Inger in ERIC Digest. “For experienced teachers, collegiality prevents end-of-year burnout and stimulates enthusiasm.”

Inger goes on to list six dimensions that support meaningful collaboration, particularly in the face of departmental boundaries and a traditional culture that respects individual privacy. Those include leaders who convey why collaboration is important; teacher teams that have decisionmaking powers; protected time for collaborative work; the availability of material support; the ability to receive training; and distributed leadership among teachers and administrators.

In the end, says Inger, interdependence and opportunity are the most critical factors in making collaboration work. “The practices of colleagues are most likely to make a difference where they are an integral, inescapable part of day-to-day work. Teachers’ main motivations and rewards are in the work of teaching. To the extent that they find themselves interdependent with one another to manage and reap the rewards of teaching, joint work will be worth the investment of time and resources.”

References

Eastwood, K.W., & Louis, K.S. (1992). Restructuring that lasts: Managing the performance dip. Journal of School Leadership, 2(2), 212-224.

Garmston, R.J., & Wellman, B.M. (2003). The importance of professional community. ENC Focus 11(7), 7-9. Retrieved July 5, 2005, from www.enc.org/features/focus/archive/communities/document.shtm?input=FOC-003246-importance

Inger, M. (1993). Teacher collaboration in urban secondary schools (ERIC/CUE Digest No. 93). New York, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education. Retrieved July 5, 2005, from www.ericdigests.org/1994/teacher.htm

Mezzacappa, D. (2005). No Child Left Behind: Teacher quality (Education Reform Backgrounder No. 27). Washington, DC: National Education Writers Association.

Rentner, D.S., Kober, N., Scott, C., Chudowsky, N., Chudowsky, V., Joftus, S., et al. (2005). From the capital to the classroom: Year 3 of the No Child Left Behind Act. Washington, DC: Center on Education Policy.

Riley, S.C., & Fouts, J.T. (2003). The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Model School Initiative. Cohort 1: Year 3 summary report. Seattle, WA: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Retrieved June 22, 2005, from www.gatesfoundation.org/nr/downloads/ed/researchevaluation/Cohort1Yr3Summary.pdf

Schafer, W.D., Hultgren, F.H., Hawley, W.D., Abrams, A.L., Seubert, C.C., & Mazzoni, S. (1997). Study of higher-success and lower-success elementary schools. Retrieved June 22, 2005, from the School Improvement in Maryland Web site: www.mdk12.org/process/benchmark/improve/study/