WHY TEACHER WORKING CONDITIONS MATTER

For virtually any business or organization, the conditions in which employees work drive their satisfaction and productivity. Yet while businesses often focus on employee satisfaction, many schools often struggle to address critical working conditions -- isolating teachers in classrooms with closed doors, denying them basic materials to do their jobs, inundating them with non-essential duties, providing them with little input into the design and organization of schools, and offering little opportunity for career advancement and professional growth. Such conditions are closely related to teacher turnover and difficulties in recruiting and retaining teachers.

In 2004, the Center for Teaching Quality analyzed more than 34,000 surveys from teachers and principals in 90 percent of North Carolina’s schools. Subsequently, a similar initiative was conducted in South Carolina where more than 15,000 surveys were analyzed.

In both studies teachers’ responses on the Working Conditions Survey were powerful predictors of whether or not schools made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and performed well on the states’ respective school accountability model.

In North Carolina, Leadership was the single greatest predictor of AYP status at the middle school level. For every one point increase (on a one-to-five scale of satisfaction) on the survey’s leadership domain average, middle schools were 6.7 times more likely to have made AYP.  North Carolina schools (all grade levels) were four times more likely to make AYP for every one point domain average increase on the survey in professional development; for every one point increase on the survey in the facilities and resources domain average, schools (all grade levels) were 2.8 times more likely to make AYP.

In South Carolina, survey results for empowerment were a significant predictor of AYP status.  For every one point increase on the survey, schools are 4.75 times more likely to achieve AYP.  For every one point increase on the survey in all schools on the professional development domain average, South Carolina schools were 2.5 times more likely to achieve AYP.

The connections between teacher retention and working conditions were statistically significant in many instances as well.  However, the connections were at lower levels than those of student achievement and lower than other critical factors influencing teachers’ decisions to remain in a school including the percentage of teachers on emergency credentials, student poverty levels, school size and school designation levels for student achievement. 

In North Carolina, higher satisfaction levels with the empowerment questions on the survey had a significant impact on teacher retention at the high school level.  A significant connection between retention and professional development was also documented. Professional development was also found to exert a significant effect on teacher retention at the elementary level. Leadership was a significant predictor of teacher retention in South Carolina.

The Center for Teaching Quality, under the leadership of Executive Director, Eric Hirsch, is working in a number of other states (Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Mississippi Nevada, Ohio, and Virginia as well as North Carolina again) to administer web-based working conditions survey to capture the links between those conditions and teacher retention and student achievement as well as help local communities to use the data to drive school improvements.

Click here to learn more about teacher working conditions and how to develop instruments, collect data, and analyze results.

The Commonwealth of Virginia has now asked Center for Teaching Quality to assemble working conditions data and help both researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to understand the relationship among those conditions and teacher preparation, teaching effectiveness, and student achievement. For more information contact Eric Hirsch at ehirsch@teachingquality.org

Last updated: March 6, 2006