We’re All in This Together: Teachers’ Commitment to Their Students in High-Poverty, Urban Schools

• In Event: Supports, Challenges, and Opportunities: Examining Teachers’ and Administrators’ Experiences in High-Poverty Urban Schools

Abstract

Purposes

Teachers are largely motivated by the prospect of achieving psychic (intrinsic) rewards with their students (Lortie, 1975). However, high-poverty schools present significant challenges because they typically enroll students with many needs. Some researchers suggest that teachers prefer to work with whiter, wealthier, and higher-achieving students (Hanushek, et al., 2004). We investigated why teachers chose to work with high-poverty, high-minority populations, and whether they achieved a sufficient “sense of success” (Johnson & Birkeland, 2003) to stay. Such psychic rewards (Lortie, 1975) and, in some cases, a commitment to social justice (Quartz, 2003) motivated many teachers’ initial choices and plans to continue to work in these settings.

Context and Framework

Teachers’ career decisions depend on psychic rewards (Lortie, 1975), and many educators cite a commitment to social justice and serving under-resourced communities as a rationale for teaching in urban settings (Quartz, 2003). These perspectives guided our analyses of teachers’ decisions to work in high-poverty, urban schools. We sought to understand whether teachers were sustained, despite significant challenges, by the prospect of contributing to their students’ development and success. Further, we examined the schools’ organizational features that contributed to their successes or failures with students.

Data and Methods

Data for this paper were drawn from a larger, qualitative study of teachers and administrators at six high-poverty schools in one large, urban district in the northeastern U.S. These schools served high-poverty students, yet were not chronically failing. Participants were drawn from two elementary schools, one K-8 school, one middle school, and two high schools. We conducted interviews with 10-25 teachers and administrators at each school, for a total of 95 interviews. We reflected on emergent themes using thematic summaries and then coded transcribed data. This allowed us to look across the sample and to identify patterns within and across schools.

Results

Most of the schools we examined retained teachers at surprisingly high rates. Overall, teachers reported a strong commitment to their students. They described the rewards of seeing struggling students succeed academically or supporting students in overcoming family struggles. However, their accounts revealed that the school plays a key role in their chance for success.

Although many teachers expressed a commitment to their students and, overall, a desire to remain at their school, they noted the role of organizational supports or shortcomings in mediating their success. Positive features included administrators building bridges with parents, the accessibility of social services for students, and academic supports beyond the classroom. Teachers did not see themselves as “saviors” for their students. They recognized the real challenges present in their work and knew that they could not succeed solely because of individual commitment. Rather, their commitment, along with organizational supports from colleagues and administrators, could produce positive outcomes for students and psychic rewards for them.

Significance

Findings from this paper will inform practitioners, policymakers, and researchers interested in understanding teachers’ career decisions. They can inform districts’ assignment and transfer policies and administrators’ efforts to ensure that high-poverty schools are orderly and purposeful and maintain constructive relationships with parents.

Author

• Monica Ng, Harvard University