Giving Compass' Take:

• As The 74 writes, when teachers work together, they can create better outcomes. By creating schools that encourage teachers to collaborate more openly, students can easily flourish.

• There are complications with viewing teaching as a "team sport," but confronting those challenges may be worth it, and education funders should look at this method of collective impact.

• Learn how student-teacher relationships affect achievement.

The K-12 ocean is big. Helping students learn to read well, play a musical instrument, and explore what it means to be human takes years — decades, even. The challenge is bigger than any one educator.

To navigate this ocean, educators need to row together. Some schools row together with a shared curriculum. Others align around great teaching practices. Still others take a common approach to cultivating school culture, values, and relationships. And some do all of the above.

When adults row together, children benefit from the cumulative impact of their efforts.

But here the waters get murky. Treating teaching as a team sport can be in tension with our ideas about teacher freedom and how to best honor educator expertise. Does asking teachers to row together hinder creativity and lead to professional despair? Or does it give teachers the foundation to have their greatest impact?

The most successful schools find ways to navigate this tension. We can debate the how, but both students and educators are better off when we row together in our schools.

Read the full article about fostering teacher collaboration by Alex Hernandez at The 74.