Where Teachers Thrive: Organizing Schools for Success

Johnson, Susan Moore

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9781682533598: Where Teachers Thrive: Organizing Schools for Success

ISBN 10: 168253359X ISBN 13: 9781682533598

Publisher: Harvard Education Press, 2019

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In Where Teachers Thrive, Susan Moore Johnson outlines a powerful argument about the importance of the school as an organization in nurturing high-quality teaching. Based on case studies conducted in fourteen high-poverty, urban schools, the book examines why some schools failed to make progress, while others achieved remarkable results. It explores the challenges that administrators and teachers faced and describes what worked, what didn’t work, and why.

Johnson draws on vivid portraits of schools to highlight an array of school-based systems and practices that support teachers’ professional growth and effectiveness. These include a rich and interactive hiring process; team-based curriculum planning and assessment; and informative feedback and ongoing professional learning. Critical to all of these is the role of the principal as an essential agent in a school’s success. Although these elements may vary from school to school, Johnson argues that together these systems provide a comprehensive, mutually reinforcing set of well-orchestrated strategies that can help schools deliver results that exceed the sum of teachers’ individual efforts.

Since 2000, policy makers and education officials have diligently sought to improve schools by improving the quality of individual teachers. However, even if those teachers are skilled and committed, the schools where they work are all too often disjointed, dysfunctional organizations that serve no one well. Where Teachers Thrive explains clearly how educators within a school can join together to adopt systems of practice that ensure growth and success by all teachers and their students.

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From the Back Cover

In Where Teachers Thrive, Susan Moore Johnson demonstrates the importance of the school as an organization in nurturing high-quality teaching. Based on decades of research and case studies of fourteen high-poverty, urban schools, the book examines why some schools failed to make progress, while others achieved remarkable results. It explores the challenges that administrators and teachers faced and describes what worked, what didn’t, and why.

Where Teachers Thrive explains clearly how educators within a school can join together to adopt systems of practice that ensure growth and success by all teachers and their students.

“Susan Moore Johnson makes a profound contribution to the development of the teaching profession at the very time it is most needed. The agenda for school success and achieving equity is now before us.”
—Michael Fullan, professor emeritus and former dean, University of Toronto, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

“In this exceptional book, Susan Moore Johnson urges readers to strengthen the features of teachers’ work environments that shape their ability to succeed with students. Where Teachers Thrive should be required reading for decision makers who care about deep and lasting educational improvement.”
—Randi Weingarten, president, American Federation of Teachers

“Where Teachers Thrive presents compelling evidence that efforts to recruit and retain knowledgeable and dedicated teachers will likely fail unless they are coupled to a strategic focus on the schools in which teachers work. Vividly detailed chapters demonstrate the power of key systems—for hiring, collaboration, evaluation, and leadership—to help teachers thrive and schools succeed.”
—Judith Warren Little, Carol Liu Professor of Education Policy, emerita, University of California, Berkeley

“In this important and timely book, Susan Moore Johnson argues that professional working conditions are the key to teachers thriving professionally. School leaders must foster an organizational culture that multiplies the impact of every teacher on student achievement. Johnson’s book points the way.”
—Kim Marshall, editor, Marshall Memo

Susan Moore Johnson is the Jerome T. Murphy Research Professor in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she served as academic dean from 1993 to 1999.

About the Author

Susan Moore Johnson is the Jerome T. Murphy Research Professor in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she served as academic dean from 1993 to 1999.

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