In Context

As schools across the country face ongoing pressure to raise test scores and bring all students up to high standards, increased attention is being paid to the conditions under which school improvement efforts are likely to take hold and prove effective over the long term. Nowhere is this more true than in low-performing, high-poverty urban districts—the schools that have, in general, demonstrated the least success in raising student achievement and carrying out meaningful, long-lasting reforms.

In examining the characteristics of struggling schools that have made significant gains, researchers have verified what most educators already know to be true: the quality of the relationships within a school community makes a difference. "In schools that are improving, where trust and cooperative adult efforts are strong, students report that they feel safe, sense that teachers care about them, and experience greater academic challenge. In contrast, in schools with flat or declining test scores, teachers are more likely to state that they do not trust one another." (Sebring & Bryk, 2000).

Relationships among teachers and principals, in particular, are being held out as important indicators of a school’s or district’s readiness for reform and ability to sustain it. The U.S. Department of Education’s Comprehensive School Reform Program (CSR), for example, emphasizes that if improvement efforts are to be successful over the long term, school leaders must first build a solid foundation for schoolwide reform. Such foundations are characterized by trust among school members, collegial relationships, and widespread buy-in and support, as well as a shared vision for change (Hale, 2000; Keirstead, 1999). The High Performance Learning Community Project (HPLC) model funded by the U.S. Department of Education similarly identifies a school’s level of buy-in for a reform strategy as a critical component of "implementation capacity," the "skills, habits of mind, and organizational culture needed to consistently and effectively bring about improvement on an ongoing basis…" (Geiser & Berman, 2000).

Still, the questions remain: What is "trust," exactly? How is it connected to school improvement, and how can it be built and maintained?