Amid many challenges in the education field, it is heartening to see the positive results of a recent study about a new way to structure teacher teams and responsibilities. The study of team-based staffing found that educator collaboration and perceived authority leads to teachers being less likely to leave the teaching profession. 

THE STUDY

Team-based staffing, teacher authority, and teacher turnover. tinyurl.com/2739w6hh

The Next Education Workforce (NEW) initiative, a team-based model of organizing teaching staff, was designed at Arizona State University in 2018 and implemented initially with two Arizona school districts. The model has since spread to more than 150 schools in several states. It leverages collaborative teams of educators that depart from the traditional egg crate model in which a single teacher can be responsible for up to 125 students. Integrated teams of teachers with different roles and responsibilities are made up of a mix of experienced, novice, and student teachers who share a roster of students. The goals are to enable teachers to provide personalized, student-centered instruction that is difficult with one teacher and a large group of students; to support teachers’ learning and development, especially but not exclusively for new teachers; to reduce the isolation that can cause teacher burnout and attrition; and to promote teachers’ decision-making authority and eschew a top-down model of educational authority.

The NEW model is composed of eight key elements:

• providing each student with rigorous learning opportunities
• having and using team planning time
• sharing multiple learning spaces and moving across these spaces throughout the day
• adjusting the schedule according to the needs of teachers and students
• using data to tailor learning to each student
• grouping and regrouping students based on student needs and interests
• sharing a roster of students
• differentiating members’ roles and responsibilities

METHODOLOGY

This study looked at the implementation of the NEW model and the relationships between team-based staffing, teacher perceptions of their own authority, and teacher retention. The study focused on schools in Mesa, Arizona, which educates more than 50,000 students across 82 school sites. Participating in the NEW model is voluntary for schools and educators, and the number of teams a school has varies, with some partly teamed and some entirely teamed. Of the 3,602 individuals on the Mesa teaching staff, 342 of them were on NEW teams.

The research questions were:

•  Do teachers on NEW teams implement and practice the eight key elements of the NEW model, and does this vary across different types of teachers and schools?
• How much authority do teachers have in regard to educational decision-making, both within classrooms and schoolwide? Does this differ between NEW teachers and others?
• Are NEW team members more or less likely to depart their school, and is this related to their degree of authority?

Data were drawn from the Mesa Teacher Survey administered to all teachers in the spring of 2023 and district administrative records related to demographic characteristics of teachers and schools in the 2022-23 school year, teachers’ performance evaluation scores from the prior two years (2020-21 and 2021-22), and teacher departures from their school or the district between the end of the spring semester 2023 and early in the fall semester 2023. (Note that this study is part of a larger series of studies examining the NEW model.) 

When examining the relationship between teaming practices, perceived authority, and turnover, the researchers controlled for years of experience, education and preparation, and teacher quality using performance evaluation scores from the prior two years.

FINDINGS

The study had three primary findings:

• An overwhelming majority of teachers on NEW teams reported they are implementing the NEW model as designed.
• NEW teachers reported they have higher levels of authority than non-NEW teachers.
• NEW team members were far less likely than non-NEW teachers to leave their schools or districts (11.7% vs. 21%). That attrition rate was also lower than the national figure of 16% of teachers who leave annually.

Here’s a closer look at these findings. The majority of teachers on NEW teams reported they and their teams practice all eight elements of the model, ranging from 86% who said they shared a roster of students to 94% who said they have and use shared planning time. The researchers used the term “teamness” to represent the collective score of those survey responses. It’s worth noting that these practices were not limited to the NEW teachers, though. A number of non-NEW teachers answered the questions intended only for NEW teachers, and the majority of them said they also practice the elements in their classrooms, likely because they draw on research about effective instructional practices.

NEW teachers were statistically more likely than non-NEW teachers to rate themselves highly on all five factors of what the researchers called professional-like authority:

• I am trusted to make sound professional decisions about instruction.
• I control how I use my scheduled class time.
• I set grading and student assessment practices in my classroom.
• I am free to be creative in my teaching approach.
• I contribute to decisions about educational issues at my school.

NEW teachers who reported higher levels of “teamness” were also more likely to report having high levels of perceived authority. Together, these findings suggest that the model does indeed encourage teacher decision-making as intended in the design. 

Teachers who said they had more authority were less likely to leave their jobs than those with less authority, regardless of whether they were NEW teachers or not. Importantly, though, the combination of being part of a NEW collaborative teaching team and having high levels of decision-making authority resulted in the lowest turnover rates (6.6% vs. 22% for teachers with lower perceived authority). 

IMPLICATIONS

The study suggests there are benefits to team-based staffing models compared to the egg crate model of one teacher per classroom who often works in isolation. This analysis has implications not only for staffing but also for designing and facilitating professional learning. As the researchers note, many teachers are pressed for time and struggle to personalize their practice to specific students, even when they engage in professional learning designed to teach them how to differentiate based on students’ needs. With team-based teaching, teachers can have more time and bandwidth to participate in professional learning and determine how to apply what they learn to benefit students with different needs. Professional learning can also be designed with teams in mind, so that not every teacher or staff member has to learn everything.

There were some limitations of the study, including its small size and focus on one district, the self-report nature of the survey data, and the fact that teachers joined NEW teams voluntarily, so they may have been predisposed to collaborate, lead, or commit to staying in teaching. But these limitations do not lessen the magnitude of the findings or their potential impact on future efforts to reimagine school staffing and professional learning. As Learning Forward regularly advocates, small studies of one program are valuable in providing detail about what high quality professional learning entails, a better understanding about the impact of particular professional learning designs, and a basis for thoughtful and contextualized spread and scale. 

The study also supports the case in the Standards for Professional Learning for collaborative planning and meaningful peer supports, not just for developing specific practices but for confidence and self-competence. It reminds us that educators need to believe they have the authority to make a change in order to invest time and energy to create that change.

With team-based teaching, teachers can have more time and bandwidth to participate in professional learning and determine how to apply what they learn to benefit students with different needs.