The Teacher Working Conditions Survey: Why Should I Participate?

• Increased funding for professional development targeted to needs identified by teachers.
• Graduate programs to prepare school administrators being revamped to address teacher recruitment, retention and working conditions.

• Principal evaluations being modified to include recruitment, retention, and working conditions strategies.

• Schools where time was rated favorably being studied so their procedures and contractual provisions can be implemented elsewhere.

• Funding for working conditions survey and analysis included in the state budget; advisory group will provide ongoing review.

All of this is in addition to efforts to raise teacher salaries state-wide. Other states are also implementing funding and policy changes, though none have as much history with the initiative as North Carolina.

How are they doing it? Legislators, school board members, and other policy makers often tell us that they need data to guide their decisions. Now there IS data from several other states and soon we’ll have Kansas-specific data to help in lobbying, bargaining, and telling the public about the needs of our schools.

In Virginia, North Carolina (NC), South Carolina (SC), and Ohio, the survey was administered to every teacher, administrator, and licensed professional working in the schools studied. In North Carolina, over 40,000 educators participated. Responses were correlated with achievement data, providing some powerful revelations.

Six key findings emerged from TWC research thus far.

1. TWCs are important predictors of student achievement. For example, in schools where leadership was rated 1 point higher (on a 1-5 scale), NC middle schools were 6.7 times more likely to meet AYP, NC high schools were 48 times more likely to be in one of the top state rankings for percent of students at or above grade level. Time, Empowerment, Facilities & Resources, and Professional Development were also significantly linked to schools that demonstrated improved achievement results.
2. TWCs make a difference in teacher retention. When TWC data is correlated with teacher turnover, schools with higher TWC rankings demonstrated greater stability of the school staff. It’s also important to note that teacher salary was a significant factor in teacher retention. To address school quality and student learning, it is important to work for optimum working conditions and to improve salaries.
3. Teacher perceptions of working conditions were accurate. When teachers gave poorer ratings to facilities, those schools were found to have more mobile classrooms and less access for teachers and students to technology and supplies. Also, community perceptions (when investigated in select schools) correlated highly with teacher perceptions about the degree of empowerment and quality of school leadership.
4. Leadership is critical to improved TWCs. Every state using the survey thus far has found that teachers rate their working conditions 1 full point lower than school administrators. On one hand, some difference is understandable – administrators know more about how they have worked to prevent unnecessary paperwork from being dumped on teachers. Still, an item like “Teachers in this building have time to plan with their colleagues during the school day” generated teacher rating of 2.92 and administrator rankings of 4.14. Something is wrong with this picture (or data)!
5. Teachers, regardless of their background and experience, view TWCs similarly. We talk often about disaggregating data… this was done with TWC data in other states. They found that first year teachers or 30 year veterans, teachers with bachelors degrees or teachers with doctorates, National Board Certified teachers, minority teachers, white teachers –ALL ranked TWCs in their individual buildings with great consistency.
6. Many aspects of TWCs have “ripple effects”. There is a high correlation between several of the working conditions. Some are surprisingly high. For instance, the highest correlation existed between Leadership and Professional Development. Possibly this means that, in buildings where the leadership is on target with appropriate school goals and support to help teachers focus on student learning, professional development tends to be higher quality, content-based, ongoing, embedded in day-to-day work.

What do we do with the data?

At the school level… In the finding about “ripple effects” above, we speculated why there might be a high correlation between leadership and professional development. In the leadership item, we speculated about why teachers and administrators might respond differently on some items. This is exactly the kind of discussion that needs to happen in school improvement teams in each school in Kansas.

The data does not provide all the answers. It helps a school look at its structure, leadership, the time teachers have, etc. and begin to figure out how to improve. Data should be used as part of developing school improvement plans. Teachers, counselors, library media specialists, and the array of school personnel should all be included in meaningful discussions about working conditions, student learning conditions, and ways to support improvement.

At the district level… First, districts MUST acknowledge that TWCs matter and they must commit the time and resources necessary to improve those conditions. The strong link between teacher impressions of working conditions and student achievement is a wake-up call that teacher working conditions ARE student learning conditions. Districts in other states are rethinking the importance of teacher feedback to assess how a building is doing. The data can provide useful information to help bargaining teams focus on objectives that will benefit both teachers and student learning. In addition, as characteristics of effective school leaders become the norm in more schools and district offices, collaborative problem solving will increase at the building level and in the bargaining process.

At the state level… State level data has led to has led to four recommended actions from the Center for Teaching Quality:

• Invest in high-quality leaders who will include teachers in decision making about instruction and create learning communities that help all students succeed.
• Consider reforms that directly address teachers’ greatest concerns about their working conditions.

• Provide state funding for the design, dissemination, and analysis of the working conditions survey (on a ongoing, periodic cycle.)

• Provide assistance to school and district communities to ensure they understand working conditions.

Kansas NEA is looking forward to having significant data for use in lobbying and to develop our own leadership training, bargaining, and support for school improvement. KNEA helped obtain partial funding for the project through a grant from NEA. We’re now committed to helping implement the survey and guarantee a high rate of return from every public school in Kansas.

Governor Sebelius has embraced this project and worked to obtain partial funding for from the National Governors’ Association. Her support is firmly based on a desire to work for meaningful school improvement and funding increases. At a time when the motives and goals of some policy-makers are in doubt, this data can provide a solid foundation for combating misguided reforms regarding teacher quality, funding, and school leadership.

In other words, this survey is kind of important. The only thing that remains is YOUR participation and the participation of your colleagues in your school! Don’t be left out of the picture – go online and complete the survey during the designated time frame and make your voice heard in a meaningful way for Kansas public schools, educators, and our students.

The Kansas Plan for Surveying Teacher Working Conditions

UniServ Directors will work with local presidents and superintendents to provide official letters inviting participation to every licensed school employee assigned to a school building. This includes teachers plus other licensed school personnel such as library media specialists, counselors, psychologists, nurses, school administrators, etc.

• United School Administrators (USA) will utilize its channels to inform school administrators of USA’s participation and support of the project.

• Building reps and local presidents will work with administrators to distribute invitation letters to all the appropriate participants in each building.

• Invitation letters will have a code number that will allow the employee access to take the survey online.

• KNEA UniServ offices will be available to respond to questions about the project throughout the month of implementation.

• KNEA Headquarters will provide replacement codes if any employee loses their invitation letter.

• Participants may go online at http://www.kansastwc.org to learn more about the survey prior to the official survey window.
• All participants should complete the survey online between January 30, 2006 and February 26, 2006. It will be at http://www.kansastwc.org.

Key Questions and Answers:

Q. How can I be sure that this is anonymous?

Q. What if I lose my letter?

Q. How long will it take to complete this survey?

Q. When will the results be reported?

Q. More questions?