Teacher Workforce Developments: Academic Competitiveness and Job Satisfaction of New Teachers in the Post–No Child Left Behind Era

• In Event: 33.038 - National and International Perspectives on Teacher Satisfaction and Working Conditions

Abstract

Objective
This research investigates trends and changes in job satisfaction, both overall and with regard to job pay and job security, of different types of teachers across different school contexts.

Perspectives
The ability to hire and retain qualified public school teachers in the United States has become a constant concern for school leaders and policymakers (Murnane & Steele, 2007). In the wake of the 2008 economic decline and changes in federal education policy, college graduates have faced new considerations when entering the teaching profession (Loeb & Miller, 2006; Mertler, 2010; Byrd-Blake et. al, 2010). Understanding the context in which skilled college graduates choose to become teachers and the work experiences they have after they are hired is vital to improving the U.S. public school system.

Methods
Descriptive statistics will be used to compare abilities and job satisfaction rates of teachers and other graduates, and multivariate regression analyses will be run to predict job satisfaction rates of new teachers. Odds ratios based on logit models will be presented; these estimate the likelihood of teacher job satisfaction across teacher and school characteristics.

Data Source
Data are from the 1993, 2000, and 2008 Baccalaureate and Beyond (B&B) studies.

Results/Conclusions
While there was a decline in recent college graduates’ overall job satisfaction from 2000 to 2008, the B&B data show that, in the 2008 cohort, teachers remained 14 percent more satisfied than other graduates. Additionally, among those in the 2008 cohort, teachers were more likely to be satisfied with their pay than non-teachers, a reversal of the 2000 cohort data. Teachers in the 2008 cohort reported around the same levels of job security as that of non-teachers. These trends can be largely explained by changes in public school budgeting and the economic climate from 2000 to 2008 (Leachman and Mai, 2013).

Teacher job satisfaction was found to vary widely based on teacher and school characteristics. For instance, black and Hispanic teachers in 2008 were 40 percent less likely to report overall job satisfaction than teachers of other demographic groups. Teacher-reported job security between 2000 and 2008 showed a greater decline among non-tenured teachers than among tenured teachers. Additionally, teachers’ academic skills were not strong indicators of their job satisfaction. School characteristics also had an impact on satisfaction with pay and overall, with private elementary school teachers in the 2008 cohort being 60 percent less likely to be satisfied overall compared to public elementary school teachers. School diversity and location also appear to be significant factors.

Scientific/Scholarly Significance
The results of this analysis indicate that teachers tend to be more satisfied in their jobs than graduates entering other fields. Evidence also suggests that policy changes made to increase recruitment of skilled college graduates to the teaching profession over the past two decades is showing some success. However, while achievement scores of new teachers have increased (Goldhaber & Walch, 2013; Lankford et al., 2014), diversity has decreased. Consideration of new policies or strategies to attract highly skilled and diverse teachers may be needed.

Authors

• Susanna Loeb, Stanford University

• Benjamin Master, Stanford University