Why Promising School Initiatives Often Fail to Get Teacher Buy-In

Thomas Arnett of the Clayton Christensen Institute used the Jobs to Be Done approach in 2018 to explain why teachers resist school initiatives that look promising on paper. The section added after Arnett’s text, updated in 2026, collects what later reporting and commentary say about teacher buy in, and turns it into steps school leaders can plan.

Circumstances, not personality traits, drive teachers to innovate by Thomas Arnett

As Johanna¹ rolled back from summer break and started preparing to teach 6th grade for the 2013-2014 school year, she got word that her district was launching a promising new initiative. In a few select pilot classes, teachers would be doing “personalized learning;” an approach that the district hailed as a 21st-century way to differentiate instruction.

But fast forward a few months, and word was spreading like wildfire at district staff meetings that the new initiative was an absolute nightmare. The pilot teachers were under water trying to develop “personalized” learning plans for each of their students. Then came mountains of paperwork to track and customize students’ progress through their unique learning pathways. And in the classrooms, the magical moments of teaching and learning had all but vanished. Students spent most of their school hours plugged into electronic tablets as teachers patrolled the room to ensure the “personalized” experiences ran smoothly.

As these horror stories tallied up, Johanna thought “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. How am I going to keep up with 60 kids doing 60 different things across 3 subjects?” And when she looked around for her colleagues’ reactions, they weren’t any more thrilled than she was. “All of the teachers were basically in an uproar saying ‘This is not for us, this is not gonna work. Plus, what is this doing to our kids?’”

Common pitfalls on the path to school improvement

Johanna’s story might be a tale as old as modern public education. Year after year, “progressives,” “reformers” or “innovators” hand down new ideas to school leaders across the country, who then roll them out across their schools and classrooms. But when the rubber hits the road, not all teachers carry the banner. Leaders get frustrated that their boots on the ground don’t understand the vision. But for teachers, the ideas that look so shiny in fresh packaging just aren’t as helpful as they were sold to be. And when one initiative after another enters a school without really landing, it’s easy to see why many teachers have allergic reactions to new initiatives.

As Johanna’s story illustrates, the success of personalized learning—or any other school initiative—hinges on teacher adoption. Professional teachers ultimately decide for themselves how best to teach their content within the four walls of their classrooms, and whether new practices will be helpful in doing so. Many new initiatives fail because leaders rarely understand what really motivates a teacher to change his practices.

A new framework for approaching change management

In late 2017, the research team at the Clayton Christensen Institute launched a project using the Jobs to Be Done Theory to uncover what truly motivates teachers to draw new instructional practices into their lives. According to the theory—validated across many sectors—all people are internally motivated toward reaching personal goals within their particular life circumstances. We call these circumstance-based goals ‘Jobs’ because just as people ‘hire’ contractors to help them build houses or lawyers to help them build a case, people search for something they can ‘hire’ to help them when ‘Jobs’ arise.

In Johanna’s case, her circumstances were such that she was generally pleased with the way her students were performing in class, she just wished they were a bit more engaged overall. The Job she was looking to hire for was not to hyper-differentiate her lessons, especially if new practices doubled her workload while making her abandon her way of teaching. Instead, after interviewing Johanna, we saw that Johanna’s “Job,” or circumstance-based goal, was to find practical, non-radical ways to engage her students in social studies and language arts content.

A year after personalized learning came to Johanna’s district, the district rebooted its approach and invited teachers to join a new digital learning cohort. Johanna had used classroom technology as part of her teacher preparation program and knew how effective digital devices could be for supplementing her lessons and class projects with learning content tailored to her students’ individual needs and preferences, thereby boosting engagement. But she was reluctant to sign up given how time-intensive and disruptive the district’s last initiative had turned out. However, her anxieties subsided when teachers from the first cohort told her about the great professional development they received to help them adopt new digital-learning practices. Her worries aside, Johanna was thrilled by the idea of joining the cohort to get a class set of iPads.

Four “Jobs” that teachers are hiring for

Through our research, we interviewed teachers who had recently adopted a new instructional practice to uncover the Jobs that often motivate them to pull new practices into their classrooms. By analyzing patterns across the narratives in these interviews, we uncovered four distinct Jobs. These Jobs are:

1. Help me lead the way in improving my school. Teachers with this Job were eager to demonstrate their value as contributors to broader school improvement efforts. They looked for promising yet simple initiatives that would be straightforward to share with their colleagues.
2. Help me engage and challenge more of my students in a way that’s manageable (Johanna’s Job). Teachers with this Job were happy overall with the teaching and learning in their classrooms, but wanted practical strategies for reaching a few students who were slipping through the cracks.
3. Help me replace a broken instructional model so I can reach each student. Teachers with this Job taught in circumstances where few students were succeeding academically. They were eager for radical new approaches that would help them find a renewed sense of purpose as teachers.
4. Help me to not fall behind on my school’s new initiative. For these teachers, their schools’ initiatives didn’t seem to offer viable ways to reach their goals, and thereby created compliance-oriented motivations. They focused on finding help with doing what they had to do in order to not disappoint their school leaders, colleagues, and students.

As these Jobs surfaced from our data, a number of key takeaways also emerged. First, one-size-fits-all initiatives rarely offer acceptable solutions for all the varied Jobs among a school’s teaching staff. For example, an initiative that appeals to teachers looking to lead their schools’ incremental improvement efforts will likely fall flat among teachers looking to radically change instructional models.

Second, the teachers who adopt innovative practices enthusiastically do not do so because their personalities make them prone to be innovators or early adopters. Rather, any teacher will adopt innovative practices when their circumstances help them see a way to fulfill one of their existing Jobs.

Third, encouraging adoption is just as much about creating the circumstances that prompt change and addressing circumstances that hinder change as it is about advertising the benefits of something new.

In our paper, “The Teacher’s Quest for Progress: How school leaders can motivate instructional innovation using Jobs to be Done,” we lay out insightful recommendations that reveal how school leaders can retool their initiatives to nail the “Jobs” their teachers are already striving to fulfill. We hope that this research helps school leaders and policymakers shift from trying to foster new practices through top-down mandates that often stereotype teachers as either supporters or opponents to change, to instead design inclusive efforts that align with teachers’ circumstance-driven aspirations.  

Johanna eventually became an enthusiastic proponent of personalized learning after her district rebooted its initiative in ways that better met her Job of engaging more of her students in a manageable way. Her story shows that if school leaders hope to deliver on the progress they promise, they need to start with a clearer picture of the progress that teachers themselves are seeking.

¹Name has been changed to protect the confidentiality of our research interviews.

Teacher buy in in 2026: practical strategies for school leaders

Teacher buy in is the willingness of teachers to try a new practice, keep using it and adapt it to their own classrooms, and it decides whether most school initiatives succeed. Thomas Arnett’s article above explains that teachers adopt new practices when those practices help with a goal the teacher already has, such as engaging more students in a manageable way, and that top-down mandates rarely do that. Other writers have reached similar conclusions, and a few of them add steps that leaders can take.

Teachers keep what works for students

In a December 2025 Education Week column, Thomas Guskey, professor emeritus at the University of Kentucky, argues that leaders struggle to win buy-in through logical argument, emotional appeals or confrontation. In Guskey’s view, teachers’ beliefs are shaped by their experiences, so change usually follows a sequence: teachers try a new practice, student learning improves, and only then do attitudes shift. Guskey adds that professional learning alone rarely changes beliefs. Guskey’s column is an opinion piece that names no specific studies, referring only to unnamed research on teacher change, so it is best read as an experienced scholar’s interpretation.

Guskey’s recommendations to leaders are practical, and they match several points in Arnett’s article:

• Set realistic expectations. Early buy-in can be a move from cynicism to skepticism, in which teachers are willing to try an approach even though they are not yet convinced.
• Provide hands-on support. Teachers need reliable resources, help with unexpected problems and recognition for the extra work.
• Create structured collaboration. Regular time with trusted colleagues helps teachers share successes and solve problems.
• Collect feedback on results quickly. Guskey argues that teachers need evidence within a few weeks that students are learning more, engaging more or behaving better, so that teachers stay committed.

Teachers who help create a change support it

A 2019 K-12 Dive article by Shawna De La Rosa reports on a study by Christopher Redding of the University of Florida and Samantha Viano of George Mason University, as covered by Chalkbeat. The quoted finding is that teachers are more likely to embrace and implement changes if they are part of creating them. The article also reports that teachers who had lived through many short-lived programs were less enthusiastic about new major initiatives, and that changes that built on existing teacher practices were more likely to last. The article does not give the study’s methods or sample size, and one of the findings about student results came from a second study that had not been released, so these points are directional and not firm.

Match the support to the teacher’s goal

Arnett restated the argument in a 2018 piece for The 74, naming three misconceptions about managing change. The first is that student-centered practices appeal to most teachers, when teachers adopt practices that fit with what they already do. The second is that early adopters are the key to buy-in, when eagerness depends more on circumstances than on age or personality. The third is that professional development at the start of the year guarantees success, when teachers also need ongoing, job-embedded support and help with the stress and anxiety that change brings. The Christensen Institute’s report adds that one-size-fits-all initiatives rarely meet the different goals teachers have. The evidence for these claims is qualitative, drawn from interviews with teachers who had recently adopted new practices, and the sources reviewed here do not report a sample size or numerical results.

A plan a principal can use

1. Ask before announcing. Interview a sample of teachers about the problem they would most like solved this year, then check whether the initiative addresses any of those problems. If the match is weak, say so and change the plan or the message.
2. Start small and with volunteers. A pilot with teachers who have chosen to take part gives the school a real example, and it follows the sequence Guskey describes of trying first and believing later.
3. Offer more than one way in. Arnett’s four goals, such as leading school improvement or avoiding falling behind, call for different supports. A teacher who wants a simple practice to share with colleagues needs something different from one who wants to rebuild a course.
4. Schedule the follow-up. Put coaching, shared planning time and a check-in after three or four weeks on the calendar before the initiative begins.
5. Show results and drop what does not work. Share early evidence from the pilot classrooms, and stop parts of the initiative that add work without helping students.

The same ideas apply to student buy-in. Students may also join in when they can see how a task connects to a goal of their own and when they have some say in how it is carried out. Johanna’s story in Arnett’s article shows how a district’s second attempt, built around teachers’ actual aims and supported by colleagues’ accounts of good training, won over a teacher who had rejected the first. Readers planning staff learning can find more in edCircuit’s professional development guide.

Further Reading

1. TeachThought – 5 Strategies For Managing Change In Schools
2. Computer World – Consultation begins on 10-year plan to boost women in STEM
3. edCircuit – Can EdTech and Educators Work Together Under the Same Umbrella?

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