School Organizational Contexts, Teacher Turnover, and Student Achievement: Evidence from Panel Data.

Abstract

We study the relationship between school organizational contexts, teacher turnover, and student achievement growth in New York City (NYC) middle schools. Using factor analysis, we construct measures of four distinct dimensions of school contexts captured on the annual NYC School Survey. We identify credible estimates by isolating variation in organizational contexts within schools over time. We find that improvements in school leadership, teacher relationships, and school safety are all independently associated with corresponding reductions in teacher turnover. Increases in school safety and academic expectations for students also corresponded to increases in student learning gains. These results are robust to a range of potential threats to validity suggesting that our findings are likely driven by an underlying causal relationship. Correspondence regarding the article can be sent to mkraft@brown.edu. This research was supported by the William T. Grant Foundation. We are grateful for the support and assistance the Research Alliance of New York City Schools provided through this study. We would like to thank Sean Corcoran, Ron Ferguson, Doug Harris, Josh Goodman, James Kemple, Tim Sass, and Michael Segeritz for their helpful comments on the work. Jordan Mann provided excellent research assistance on this project. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors, and, of course, any errors or omissions are our own.