Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for Improvement

By Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider (Russell Sage Foundation, 2002)

Anyone who has spent time in schools knows relationships matter. Trust in Schools by Anthony Bryk and Barbara Schneider shows why and how much. When I first came across the book as a doctoral student who had taught in schools with very different levels of trust, it resonated deeply. I have returned to it frequently since.

The authors draw on longitudinal survey and achievement data collected after the Chicago School Reform Act of 1988 brought about a radical restructuring of educational decision-making processes in the city. They find that schools with higher levels of “relational trust” saw greater improvements in reading and math outcomes than other schools. By paying close attention to school-level relationships, they both elevated the topic and gave educators and researchers essential tools for understanding and improving the social lives of schools.

One thing I love about this book is that the authors did not set out to study relationships. Instead, they took what they heard from educators — that the level of trust was a key determinant of school improvement — and changed their focus accordingly. Trust in Schools is now more than 20 years old, and Chicago School Reform seems like a distant memory, but Bryk and Schneider’s conclusions remain powerful.

This article appears in the September 2024 issue of Kappan, Vol. 106, No. 1, p. 7.