Working Conditions, in Schools

The mandate to improve the nation's schools has focused attention on school reform, curriculum, testing, accountability, teacher quality, and a host of related issues. With the improvement of educational performance high on the nation's agenda, attracting and retaining quality teachers has become a high priority. Little attention, however, has been paid to the relationship between working conditions, teacher retention, and teaching outcomes.

The term school working conditions includes both the physical and emotional aspects of “life” within a school, including adequacy of the building, facilities, teaching resources, cleanliness, air quality, noise control, thermal conditions, administrative leadership and organization, student discipline, safety, teacher autonomy, and teacher support.

Working conditions tend to mirror the socioeconomics of the school's attendance area, varying in accordance with school location, age, size, and the percentage of low-income students in the school. According to a 2000 report from the National Educational Association, most of the nation's public schools are on average 40 years old with one third of them in need of repair. A large proportion of older schools are located in large urban centers and remote rural areas that serve a high proportion of poor children. Some of these older schools have crumbling infrastructures that contain environmental hazards, such as asbestos, mold, lead, dust, inadequate lighting, ventilation, and thermal conditions. Inadequacy and scarcity of teaching materials and equipment often contribute to inferior working conditions.

Schools in higher-socioeconomic areas are usually new, well maintained, climate controlled, and filled with abundant teaching materials. However, overcrowded conditions of some suburban and urban schools have necessitated the addition of portable classrooms and the attendant problems associated with isolation from the main school, poor ventilation, high noise levels, and concerns about hazardous chemicals emitted from the building materials.

Numerous studies demonstrate links between school conditions and student achievement. After controlling for socioeconomic status, test scores of students attending older schools are consistently lower than students in newer buildings. In addition to the factor of building functionality, attendance at an old, ill-equipped school may convey a message to students that they are less valued than their counterparts in more affluent areas.

Not surprisingly, schools with good working conditions are more likely to attract and retain experienced teachers and administrators, while schools with inferior conditions experience continual turnover and usually employ the least-experienced personnel. Beginning teachers hired to work in schools with unfavorable conditions usually migrate to different schools or leave the profession. Valuable time, attention, and resources are wasted recruiting, hiring, and inducting new personnel.

Although research on the linkage between school working conditions, teachers' retention, and student outcomes is available, policymakers have given little attention to the findings. Recent research chronicles those relationships.

In the late 1980s, The U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Educational Statistics conducted the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and its supplement, the Teacher Follow-Up Survey (TFS). Findings of the study revealed that teachers worked longer than a 40-hour work week; received salaries lower than many other professionals; felt they had little control over curriculum, textbooks, and student discipline; and were concerned about school safety. Teachers'perceptions of working conditions varied considerably depending on school size, location, and percentage of low-income students in the school. Results of the study focused attention on the issue of working conditions and paved the way for additional research.

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