ABSTRACT
This chapter explores that teachers in charter schools are more likely than teachers in traditional public schools to indicate higher levels of academic focus on learning. It discusses to what extent is the level of teacher academic focus on learning dependent upon in-school organizational conditions that are associated with effective schools, such as strong instructional leadership? The chapter refers to teachers' academic focus on learning in terms of four concepts: instructional program coherence, academic instructional innovation, time on task, and focus on achievement. Four core constructs are selected to gauge teachers' academic focus on learning based on research and theory of understanding of school improvement processes. Separate regression analyses were conducted on each of the four indicators of teachers' academic focus on learning. Because teachers are clustered within schools, all estimates are adjusted with clustering at school level, taking into account that observations within schools are not independent and accounting for possible commonalities shared by teachers in the same school.
