“Are we architects or construction workers?” Re-examining teacher autonomy and turnover in charter schools

Abstract

Charter school teachers nationwide expressed greater autonomy compared to traditional public school teachers at the turn of the century. But is this trend changing? The recent proliferation of Charter Management Organizations (CMOs), which often have prescriptive organizational models, has raised questions around how teachers perceive autonomy and control in these schools. Researchers consistently find that faculty input into decision-making has a strong influence on staff commitment and turnover. This exploratory, interview-based study critically examines why and how CMO teacher autonomy is linked to turnover. CMO teachers linked various concerns over autonomy, which was limited by their organization's model, with decisions to leave their jobs. Teachers with strong expectations for autonomy or ideas inconsistent with their school's model experienced substantial conflict involving the discipline or socialization of students that affected their career decisions. Teachers' desires to have a voice in issues surrounding students' socialization ultimately hinged upon their skepticism that current practices were adequately preparing students for college and life.

The New Professionalism? Charter Teachers’ Experiences and Qualities of the Teaching Profession

“…We suspect the organizational focus on tightly prescribed teacher behavior is shaped by organizational orientations towards replicating what is considered best practice alongside the need to use and reuse the same kinds and level of knowledge to prepare new teachers due to frequent teacher turnover (Torres, 2014(Torres, , 2016. Other work suggests that as teachers gain more experience in these kinds of charter schools (we sampled early career teachers), they experience conflict if they express differences in opinion about what is best for students (Torres, 2014). Taken together, these findings suggest that while early career teachers may be satisfied with these highly structured professional cultures, they may also "grow out" of them.…”

“…Analyzing these same data from 2003-2012, researchers found that charter school teachers reported having greater autonomy than teachers in traditional schools, with the exception that teachers working in CMOs report having significantly less autonomy than those in standalone charters (Ni, 2012;Oberfield, 2016;Roch & Sai, 2015). Qualitative research explaining this difference looks at how teachers and central office leaders experience a tension between the desire for consistency in scaling best practices across a network's schools with teachers' ideas about what is best for their students (Bulkley, 2005;Torres, 2014). However, teachers' expectations for autonomy tend to vary by years of experience -mid-career teachers tend to expect greater degrees of professional autonomy and view it as a mark of competence and status (Quartz et al, 2010).…”

“…For example, teachers in no-excuses schools must often implement disciplinary systems that involve "clear expectations for students (i.e., prescribing exactly what a student is expected to do and holding them accountable to it with consequences and rewards" (Torres, 2014, p. 11). Thus, these schools rely on prescriptive systems to help teachers manage student behavior and instruction (Merseth et al, 2009;Torres, 2014), higher levels of inspection (Lake et al, 2010) and competition among teachers (Weiner & Torres, 2016). As a result, one might assume charter school teachers would describe their work as lacking features of occupational professionalism (Evetts, 2011) or what Gorman and Sandefur (2011) identified as more traditional attributes of professionalism (i.e., expert knowledge, technical autonomy, a normative orientation toward socialization and preparation into the profession, and high status, income, and other rewards).…”

Teacher Efficacy and Disciplinary Expectations in Charter Schools: Understanding the Link to Teachers’ Career Decisions

“…Since predetermined, common behavioral expectations in CMOs require consistent implementation across teachers (Torres, 2014b), and include behaviors such as tracking the speaker at all times or walking silently down halls, teachers are constantly focusing on boundary tasks (Golann, 2015). As Jessica described, the amount of time spent on "boundary tasks" is influenced by the expectations themselves and could exacerbate student behavior because an emphasis on controlling behavior often leads to student resistance rather than buy-in (Lewis, 2001).…”

“…Teachers themselves strongly believe in the importance of common expectations and consistent enforcement but sometimes disagree with expectations (Woodworth et al, 2008). This disagreement can influence CMO teachers' decisions to leave when expectations are perceived as detrimental to students, and when teachers are not given the professional autonomy or input into deciding what works best for socializing students (Torres, 2014b). Expectations for students' behavior are thus contested among teachers as well, and can directly influence turnover.…”