How School Working Conditions Affect Teachers and Students

From the Marshall Memo #456

In this important Teachers College Record article, Susan Johnson and Matthew Kraft (Harvard Graduate School of Education) and John Papay (Brown University) report on their study of the impact of working conditions in Massachusetts public schools on teachers’ professional satisfaction, the likelihood that they would transfer from their school or leave the profession, and their students’ achievement. Here are the findings:

• First, school working conditions have a strong impact on teachers’ job satisfaction and career plans. In fact, professional conditions are more important than students’ socioeconomic background. “This finding,” say Johnson, Kraft, and Papay, “suggests that much of the apparent effect of student demographics really derives from differences in schools’ work environments.” Here are the nine working conditions the authors examined (in alphabetical order):

• Colleagues – teachers have productive working relationships with their colleagues and work together to solve problems in the school;
• Community support – families and the broader community support teachers and students in the school;
• Facilities – teachers work in a safe, clean, and well-maintained school environment that enables them to be productive;
• Governance – teachers are involved in decision-making within the school;
• Principal’s leadership – school leaders provide feedback on instruction, create an orderly and safe instructional environment, and address teachers’ concerns about issues in the school;
• Professional expertise – teachers are recognized as educational experts and are given the flexibility to make professional decisions about instruction;
• Resources – teachers have access to sufficient instructional materials, instructional technology, and support personnel in the school;
• School culture – there is mutual trust, respect, openness, and commitment to student achievement;
• Time – teachers have sufficient time to meet their instructional and noninstructional responsibilities.

• Second, working conditions are important predictors of student achievement growth in mathematics and English language arts. 

• Third, some school working conditions are more important than others. Specifically,

three variables had the strongest correlations with teachers’ job satisfaction and desire to remain where they are teaching:

• Collegial relationships;
• Principal’s leadership;
• School culture. 

The magnitude of these effects is almost twice as large as that of school resources and facilities. “It is surely important to have safe facilities, adequate resources, and sufficient time for preparation,” comment Johnson, Kraft, and Papay, “but if teachers are to achieve success with their students – particularly low-income and high-minority students who rely most on the school for their learning – they also must be able to count on their colleagues, their principal, and the organizational culture of the school to make success possible.” 

For student achievement in math and ELA, these four working conditions had the strongest correlation:

• Community support – “This finding makes sense,” comment Johnson, Kraft, and Papay, “because positive relationships between teachers and parents may well improve students’ attendance and effort in school.”
• Collegial relationships;
• Principal’s leadership;
• School culture.

“Thus,” the authors conclude, “colleagues, principals, and culture matter, not just for teachers, but for their students as well.” 

“How Context Matters in High-Need Schools: The Effects of Teachers’ Working Conditions on Their Professional Satisfaction and Their Students’ Achievement” by Susan Johnson, Matthew Kraft, and John Papay in Teachers College Record, October 2012 (Vol. 114, #10, p. 1-39), http://www.tcrecord.org