Social Science Research 85 (2020) 102347

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Social Science Research

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Public school accountability, workplace culture, and teacher

T
morale
Kristen Erichsen∗, John Reynolds
Florida State University, USA

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Educational scholars claim that teacher morale has suffered from accountability pressures and
Teacher morale constrained professionalism, but exactly what is most diminished by these pressures remains
Teacher turnover unclear. Drawing on recent theoretical work on public school organizational culture, we hy-
Workplace culture pothesize that accountability pressures hurt teacher morale and increase the risk of turnover by
Working conditions
undermining the professional culture of the school and by diminishing teacher cooperation and
School accountability
trust. We find support for this hypothesis in a national sample of teachers in 2011–12, and a
follow-up survey from 2012–13. The analyses test whether a collective pedagogical teacher
culture, comprised of professional culture and teacher collaboration, buffers the impact of these
pressures that diminish teacher morale. Counter to past research, we find that a strong collective
pedagogical teacher culture does not buffer teachers from the ill effects of negative workplace
conditions in the form of accountability pressures. We also find that accountability pressures in
the form of district dismissals are associated with a higher likelihood of teachers leaving their
school, and this relationship is not mitigated by strong professional culture. We conclude that
accountability pressures partly undermine goals of improving performance and equity in public
schools by sowing seeds of teacher dissatisfaction and contributing to teacher turnover, thus
thwarting student achievement in struggling schools.

As is true of all work organizations, some proportion of teachers in elementary and secondary schools feel dissatisfied with their
employment situation and many of them exit their positions each year. This paper focuses on public school teacher job satisfaction
and asks how much school accountability policies diminish their satisfaction and increase their desire to leave particular schools for
another. This is particularly an issue for public schools that serve lower income populations and students of color. Many studies have
linked accountability policies to loss of autonomy and teacher resentment, and others have documented the greater dissatisfaction
and turnover at high poverty, high minority schools. We know less about the degree to which these two dynamics are linked, how
much accountability policies contribute to teacher turnover through weakening social relationships at schools and contributing to a
vicious cycle of turnover at some schools.
Teacher job satisfaction, the prevalence of teachers' plans to leave schools, and staff turnover rates all vary considerably across
districts and schools (Sutcher et al., 2016). Teacher shortages are most acute at schools that have significant problems with turn-
over—a notable example is the Chicago Public School system where many public schools lose a quarter of their teaching staff or more
each year (Allensworth et al., 2009). Research shows that turnover is generally higher at schools in the South, at Title I (high poverty)
schools, and at schools that enroll higher proportions of students of color (Ingersoll, 2001; Torres, 2016). The risk of turnover is also
higher among teachers of color, those in their first few years of teaching, and teachers with alternative certification (Borman and

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ke15@my.fsu.edu (K. Erichsen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2019.102347
Received 17 December 2018; Received in revised form 12 July 2019; Accepted 28 August 2019
Available online 02 September 2019
0049-089X/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
K. Erichsen and J. Reynolds Social Science Research 85 (2020) 102347

Maritza Dowling, 2008; Carver-Thomas and Darling-Hammond, 2017). These factors tend to be mutually reinforcing, as minority
teachers and inexperienced teachers are found in greater numbers at the schools serving lower income neighborhoods and minority
neighborhoods.
What is less clear in the existing research is how school accountability policies contribute to the problem of teacher dissatisfaction
and turnover. Accountability reforms have undoubtedly impacted public teachers' working conditions, and logically tie into teacher
satisfaction and turnover intentions given how central those conditions are for teacher morale (Ladd, 2011; Ma and MacMillan, 1999;
Renzulli et al., 2011; Ryan et al., 2017; Weiss, 1999). High-stakes tests create significant workplace pressures and direct inordinate
attention to tested topics, some would say at the sacrifice of students' broader emotional and social development, and leave many
teachers constrained in their ability to teach creatively (Brint and Teele, 2008; Lambert and McCarthy, 2006; Lavigne, 2014; Wills
and Sandholtz, 2009). There are fewer studies of whether accountability pressures undermine workplace relationships and teacher
morale. Analyses of states including North Carolina (Clotfelter et al., 2004), and Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut (Ryan
et al., 2017), provide some evidence that the implementation of accountability systems increases teacher turnover. Grissom and
colleagues (2014) analysis of teacher working conditions over several waves of the nationally representative Schools and Staffing
Survey found that most working conditions were not impacted. However, research on accountability pressure and teacher morale
stands to advance from greater attention to directly measuring accountability pressure and by accounting for the degree to which
those pressures affect teacher morale by undermining the professional climate and workplace culture of public schools.
In the current study, we examine three aspects of “struggling schools” that may contribute to a vicious cycle of teacher turnover:
operating within a district where teacher dismissals are more commonplace, failing to meet state performance targets, and employing
an inordinate number of inexperienced teachers. We draw on Stearns et al. (2015) theory of collective pedagogical teacher culture to
hypothesize that professional cooperation and teacher collaboration mediate the negative impacts of accountability pressures on
teacher morale. Teachers who work in schools where there is a strong collective pedagogical teacher culture should be less negatively
affected by working in a struggling district, being in a school that doesn't make its performance benchmarks, and having a higher
percentage of new teachers as coworkers (Stearns et al., 2015, 2014; Wills and Sandholtz, 2009). We test these hypotheses with
multilevel analysis of the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey and 2012–2013 Teacher Follow-Up Survey.

1. Background

Teachers who leave their schools in any given year do so for a variety of reasons, such as transitioning to retirement, taking on
new family obligations, or making a career shift to another profession. But one of the most important reasons teachers give for why
they change schools or leave teaching altogether is dissatisfaction, especially dissatisfaction with school leadership and conditions on
the job (Borman and Maritza Dowling, 2008; Carver-Thomas and Darling-Hammond, 2017). There are many work-related factors that
might drive teachers to leave their schools or to quit teaching altogether including low pay, frustration with administration, di-
lapidated facilities, a lack of say in how and what they teach, or personal safety. Despite recent attention to the issue of low pay,
researchers consistently find that teacher dissatisfaction and turnover are more swayed by job features like autonomy or the quality of
administration than they are by pay, class size, or the physical condition of the school or classroom (Ladd, 2011; Loeb et al., 2005;
Renzulli et al., 2011; Torres, 2016). And what may be most important to teachers is a strong professional culture that imparts a
shared, consistent vision and nurtures collegiality (e.g., Stearns et al., 2014, 2015).
The degree of trust and cooperation among school staff is distinct from other job conditions such as autonomy or job demands,
and may continue to be more important for teacher morale than conditions of the school or salary levels (Yee, 1990). In one study of
public school teachers in North Carolina in 2006, teachers were more committed to their jobs when they felt respected and trusted by
administrators, were included in decision making, and felt supported on classroom discipline issues (Ladd, 2011). Borman and
Dowling's meta-analysis of 34 studies of teacher attrition (2008) found that teacher networking, collaboration, and administrative
support were key to retention. Staff relationships and job conditions may be especially critical for countering the high levels of
teacher turnover at poorer schools. Simon and Johnson (2015) summed the key findings of six major studies of teacher turnover in
high poverty schools, based on both national samples of teachers as well as regional studies of public teachers in California, Chicago,
Massachusetts, New York City, and North Carolina. The findings across these six studies corroborate the view that what is most
important for retaining teachers is the quality of school leadership, positive relationships among colleagues, and an organizational
culture of trust, respect, and shared commitment to instructional excellence (see also Johnson et al., 2012).
Much of the scholarship on teacher job satisfaction and turnover is therefore accordingly focused on various aspects of workplace
culture and the quality of the relationships among teachers and between teachers and administrators. Scholars stress the importance
of having supportive administrators (Carver-Thomas and Darling-Hammond, 2017). In this study, we focus on the degree to which
schools have a strong professional workplace culture, characterized by professional cooperation between teachers and administrators,
as well as collaboration between teachers (Stearns et al., 2014, 2015; Weiss, 1999). A strong workplace culture may also buffer
teachers from negative workplace conditions, boosting teacher satisfaction and commitment to their current school despite external
challenges (Bryk and Schneider, 2002; Stearns et al., 2015).
Further work in the area of school culture confirms the centrality of trust and shared values for boosting teacher morale and
helping teachers endure challenging circumstances. Stearns and colleagues (2014, 2015) used the Early Childhood Longitudinal
Study to examine teacher job satisfaction in a national sample of kindergarten teachers in 1998–99. They developed the concept of
collective pedagogical teacher culture that consists of a strong professional community (which corresponds most closely to the idea of
relational trust) and a norm of collaboration (Stearns et al., 2014; Moller et al., 2013). Strong community refers to qualities such as
shared values, school pride, and mutual respect, which in their approach is kept distinct from collaborative norms—teachers

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coordinating with one another on lesson plans and curriculum development and sharing information on students. Stearns et al. find
that a community of shared values and trust is a robust predictor of job satisfaction among kindergarten teachers, and also that it
mitigates the negative impact of other undesirable working conditions. For example, though teachers generally express lower sa-
tisfaction when they have less control over classroom instruction and discipline, this lack of autonomy matters less for kindergarten
teachers who work in a school with a strong professional culture (Stearns et al., 2015). They surmise that these reflect the central
importance of a strong professional culture: “A strong professional community cushions the challenges and frustrations that teachers
otherwise experience, permitting them to find satisfaction in their very challenging jobs” (Stearns et al., 2015:22).
There is some overlap between Stearns et al. (2014, 2015) theoretical perspective on collective pedagogical teacher culture and
Bryk and Schneider (2002) theory of relational trust. Bryk and Schneider (2002) advanced the concept of relational trust after
studying the process of school reform in 12 Chicago public schools. Their key finding was that the schools that struggled most with
student performance and were least successful at making improvements were those lacking social trust. Trust among school staff
refers to the shared belief that coworkers will competently perform their jobs with integrity, with the consequence that teachers treat
each other with respect and pitch in when help is needed. Relational trust has been found to be important for both teacher satisfaction
and for the successful implementation of school improvement plans (Guin, 2004; Louis, 2007; Van Maele and Van Houtte, 2009).
High teacher turnover makes it more difficult to establish relational trust (Torres, 2016), and thus when social trust is absent there is
a greater likelihood of having a vicious cycle of teacher turnover and student underachievement. We argue along the same lines that a
strong professional culture of professional cooperation and teacher collaboration may buffer teachers from the demoralizing effects of
accountability pressures and poor school performance.
Research on relational trust and collective pedagogical teacher culture suggests two ways that workplace culture might interact
with broader accountability pressures in the form of teacher dismissals, staff turnover, and failing to make adequate progress on state
accountability exams. One the one hand, school workplace culture and relational trust may be part of the mechanism linking broader
accountability pressures to teacher dissatisfaction. Being designated a school in need of improvement, for example, may result in
mandatory changes to teaching schedules or course content, and a corresponding loss of autonomy. Staff dismissals and the threat of
job loss may erode relational trust and turn teachers against each other and create suspicion of school administrators. Lastly, high
teacher turnover associated with accountability pressure may likewise undermine coworker relationships and cohesion, causing
teachers to view their jobs and schools more negatively and possibly seek employment in another school, district, or profession.
Another role that a strong organizational culture of relational trust might play is to buffer teachers from the otherwise stressful
pressures associated with accountability reforms. As noted, strong professional culture and relational trust may be a key ingredient
for schools to successfully execute improvement plans (Guin, 2004; Louis, 2007; Van Maele and Van Houtte, 2009), and adminis-
trators who strive to maintain teacher autonomy while implementing such reforms may sustain the esprit de corps and keep teachers
attached to their school (Wills and Sandholtz, 2009). If teachers feel respected and heard by the administration and continue to
embrace their school's broader educational mission, they may be better able to sustain their morale when working in a struggling
school or district. Only one other study to date has considered the accountability policies, turnover, and collective pedagogical
teacher culture in tandem (Ryan et al., 2017). Ryan and colleagues examined how accountability pressures (measured as test-stress)
may predict various measures of teacher burnout and turnover. While they did not find school climate to significantly mediate
burnout and stress, it did predict turnover (both migration and attrition).
Past research on teacher satisfaction and collective pedagogical teacher culture has not adequately explored the degree to which
pressures from accountability practices feed into teacher dissatisfaction by undermining staff relationships, above and beyond other
known consequences such as a loss of autonomy and an increase in workload. Accountability reforms such as performance-based pay,
highly publicized school grading schemes, and “parent trigger” legislation increase the risk of pitting teachers and schools against one
another. The present study explores how school culture may mediate the impacts of accountability pressures in the form of dismissals,
turnover, and AYP pressures on teacher morale.
We thus test an elaborated model of teacher morale that argues that state accountability systems contribute to teacher dis-
satisfaction and turnover by diminishing teacher professionalism and undermining effective workplace relationships (Brint and Teele,
2008; Lavigne, 2014; Wills and Sandholtz, 2009). Brint and Teele (2008) survey of teachers in Southern California revealed wide-
spread concerns over the negative impact of the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, “aroused in the con-
temporary struggle of teaching professionals to resist what they perceive to be the deskilling of their occupation” (p. 149). In contrast
to the emphasis placed on discrete job conditions in past work such as autonomy or stress or security, our focus is on workplace
relationships and professional culture and we argue these organizational factors are more consequential to teacher morale. Ac-
cordingly, we test the following hypotheses concerning accountability and teacher morale using a national sample of public school
teachers in 2011–12:

1. School accountability pressures in the form of teacher dismissals, turnover, and failing to meet annual performance benchmarks
are associated with lower teacher morale (job satisfaction, school satisfaction, school commitment, and leaving their current
school).
2. Collective pedagogical teacher culture mediates the association between accountability pressures and teacher morale and turn-
over, more so than autonomy, security or job stress.
3. The negative association between accountability pressures and teacher morale is weaker at schools where teachers report a
stronger collective pedagogical teacher culture.

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2. Data and methods

Teacher job satisfaction, school satisfaction, and intentions to keep working in a given school are examined using the 2011–2012
wave of the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and the corresponding 2012–2013 Teacher Follow-Up Survey (TFS). The SASS and
TFS are conducted approximately every four years by the National Center for Education Statistics to measure teacher shortage and
demand, elementary and secondary teacher and principal characteristics, workplace conditions, teachers' career intentions, school
safety, parental involvement, school support for information literacy, and school programs and policies (Goldring et al., 2014).
Schools are sampled from the most current Common Core of Data (CCD) school file, which includes all US elementary and secondary
schools. Stratified probability-proportionate sampling is used to select schools, and teachers are then randomly sampled within each
school. The response rate for public school teachers was around 72% in SASS, and most of our analyses are based on an analytic
sample that includes 30,560 full-time teachers in SASS from all 50 states and Washington, DC. In this paper, reported sample sizes are
rounded to the nearest 10 per NCES data security policies. The NCES followed-up with schools that participated in SASS to determine
whether responding teachers remained in their original school, moved to another school, or left teaching. They sampled teachers
within these three dispositional strata (stayers, movers, leavers) in an attempt to find out why they did or did not change schools and
what their new working conditions were like in the year following their participation in the SASS. Response rates to the TFS for
stayers and movers was 50% and around 46% for leavers (Goldring et al., 2014). Our analytic sample of teachers from the TFS
includes 1,220 stayers, 990 movers, and 1,220 leavers as of the 2012-13 school year.
Hypotheses are tested with multilevel logistic regressions (that specifically deal with imputed missing data) that examine
characteristics of teachers, the schools they work in, and the encompassing district. The key individual-level measures include three
dependent variables tapping teacher morale—teacher satisfaction, school satisfaction, and commitment to the school—and the set of
proposed mediators that link accountability pressures to teacher turnover—collective pedagogical teacher culture, autonomy, teacher
stress, and worries about job security. We also use the TFS sample to contrast teachers who did actually leave their schools in the
following school year to those who stayed on. To capture accountability pressures, we use school-level measures of turnover and
performance on state accountability tests, and a district-level measure of the percent of teachers dismissed in the past year. We also
include teacher- and school-level controls known to influence teacher satisfaction and turnover (see Appendix A).

2.1. Measures of teacher morale

Teacher satisfaction. Teachers rated their agreement with the following statement: “I am generally satisfied with being a teacher
at this school.” Over half of the sample strongly agreed that they were satisfied (54%), and 37% somewhat agreed that they were
satisfied with being a teacher at their school. A small percent disagreed (7%) or strongly disagreed (3%). Teacher satisfaction was
recoded to be dichotomous—teachers who strongly agreed and agreed with the statement were collapsed into one category, and those
who strongly disagreed and disagreed were collapsed into another category for ease of analysis.
School satisfaction. Teachers also responded to the statement “The teachers at this school like being here; I would describe us as
a satisfied group.” While the first measure of teacher job satisfaction captures the respondent's impression of her or his particular job,
this measure more broadly gets at morale among the entire teaching personnel. About a third of the sample (30%) strongly agreed
and 47% somewhat agreed that the teachers they work with are satisfied with the school. The rest somewhat disagreed (18%) or
strongly disagreed (5%). School satisfaction was also recoded to be dichotomous—teachers who strongly agreed and agreed with the
statement were collapsed into one category, and those who strongly disagreed and disagreed were collapsed into another category for
ease of analysis.
Commitment to current school. Teachers indicated their commitment to staying at their school by responding to the statement,
“I think about transferring to another school.” Three in 10 teachers reported they think about transferring (21% somewhat agreed and
9% strongly agreed). Nearly half of the sample (49%) strongly disagreed that they think about transferring and another 21%
somewhat disagreed. In the regression analyses these responses are reverse ordered such that they indicate the degree to which
teachers intend to stay at their current school. Finally, school commitment was also recoded to be dichotomous—teachers who
strongly agreed and agreed with the statement were collapsed into one category, and those who strongly disagreed and disagreed
were collapsed into another category for ease of analysis.
Follow-up status. For a subset of teachers followed up with in 2012–13 as part of the TFS, the NCES identified those who were
still employed in the same school, those who changed schools, and those who were no longer working as K-12 teachers.

2.2. Measures of accountability pressures

District teacher dismissal rate. Accountability pressures are likely more acute in struggling districts where teacher dismissals
are more widespread. We measure the percent of district teachers dismissed that year. The average district dismissal rate in the
sample is 1.8%, reflecting the relatively rare incidence of worker dismissals in this profession.
Teacher turnover. The percent of newly hired teachers is used to tap teacher turnover and ranges from 0 to more than 25% of the
teachers in the school. The sample average is 8%.
Poor school performance on state accountability tests. Teachers who work in a school that failed to make adequate yearly
progress (AYP) on the state accountability test are compared to those who work in public schools that met performance targets.
Around half (51%) of the sample worked in a public school that did not make AYP the past year.

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2.3. Measures of teacher working conditions

Collective pedagogical teacher culture. We conceptualize collective pedagogical teacher culture in line with Stearns et al.
(2015). To measure a school culture of professionalism and collaboration, we conducted exploratory factor analysis of the following
items: (1) I like the way things are run at this school; (2) Most of my colleagues share my beliefs and values about what the central
mission of the school should be; (3) The school administration's behavior toward the staff is supportive and encouraging; (4) My
principal enforces school rules for student conduct and backs me up when I need it; (5) The principal knows what kind of school he or
she wants and has communicated it to the staff; (6) In this school, staff members are recognized for a job well done; (7) There is a
great deal of cooperative effort among the staff members; (8) I make a conscious effort to coordinate the content of my courses with
that of other teachers. Using maximum likelihood exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation, we discovered two factors with
eigen scores greater than zero (Items with a factor loading above 0.6 were considered to be part of the factor). The first represents
professional community, and the second represents teacher collaboration (Stearns et al., 2015). Professional culture includes liking
the way things are run, principal rule enforcement and communication, staff recognition, and support for administrators. Teacher
collaboration is comprised of believing other teachers share your beliefs, cooperation among teachers and staff, and the degree to
which teachers coordinate course content. Table 1 presents the factor analysis results for collective pedagogical teacher culture.
Workplace autonomy. Autonomy in schools exists at both the school level in terms of influence over policies and process, and at
the classroom level in terms of control over how and what to teach (Renzulli et al., 2011). School autonomy is a scale comprised of
questions asking teachers about the influence they have over performance standards, curriculum, professional development, eval-
uating teachers, hiring new teachers, discipline policy, and school budget. The scale of classroom autonomy is made up from items
asking teachers their extent of control over selecting textbooks, teaching techniques, discipline, homework, evaluations, and course
content. Teachers reported they had “no” (coded 1),” “minor” (2), “moderate” (3), or “a great deal” (4) of influence or control over
these school and classroom matters, and the two scales of autonomy equal the average response (Cronbach's alpha for school au-
tonomy = 0.81; for classroom autonomy = 0.81).
Teacher stress. We created a measure of teacher stress by taking the average of two measures: “I think about staying home from
school because I'm just too tired to go,” and “The stress and disappointments involved in teaching at this school aren't really worth it”
(Spearman's rho = 0.37). These were numerically coded in the same fashion as the indicators of relational trust. Five percent of
teachers strongly agreed that they were so tired they felt like staying home and another 15% somewhat agreed. In terms of viewing
challenges at the schools as not being worth it, four percent strongly agreed and 17% somewhat agreed.
Job security concerns. Teachers reported how much they agreed they “worried about losing my job due to students' test scores.”
The majority of the sample disagreed (30.27%) or strongly disagreed (29.38%), indicating that most teachers feel relatively secure in
their jobs.

2.4. Controls

The teacher-level control measures are age, race/ethnicity, gender, education, years of experience, and whether the teacher has
tenure. At the school level, we control for charter school status and school size. All models also account for the percent of students on
free or reduced-price lunch and the percent of students who are members of racial/ethnic minority groups, so that we may relate the
results back to the question of whether accountability pressures contribute meaningfully to teacher dissatisfaction and turnover at
high poverty, high minority schools.

2.5. Analyses

The analyses employ three-level ordered logistic regression models estimated in Stata 14.2 (i.e., Stata's meologit command).
Multilevel modeling accounts for non-constant error variance that results from analyzing teachers (n = 27,590) nested within 6,820
schools which are likewise nested within 4,060 districts. Intercept-only models confirmed that the three measures of teacher morale
vary significantly at both the school and district levels. The predictor with the greatest amount of missing information was the
number of district dismissals, and we used regression (i.e., Stata's impute command) to impute 2,970 values for the district dismissal
rate using school turnover, school AYP status, charter school status, and the economic and racial composition of the students of the
schools in that district. Analyses omitting teachers with imputed values yielded similar results.1
The results presented below are organized as follows. Table 2 reports estimates of the bivariate associations among accountability
pressures, working conditions, and teacher morale. To test our hypotheses, we present estimates from multilevel logistic regressions
in Table 3 for teacher job satisfaction, Table 4 for school satisfaction, and Table 5 for teacher commitment to their current school.
Table 6 reports analyses of the odds of remaining at the same school in the following year, employing the smaller TFS sample. In each
regression table, Model 1 is a baseline and only includes the controls. Model 2 adds accountability pressures and is the basis for
testing Hypothesis 1 that predicts such pressures undermine teacher morale. Model 3 adds working conditions in terms of collective

1
Because we had several variables with more than 11% missing (AYP, percent of students with free/reduced lunch, percent of minority students)
we conducted multiple imputation ordered logistic regression analyses as well. These analyses yielded similar results. Mixed effects ordered logistic
models are presented in this paper because we preferred the multilevel models that account for variation at the district, school, and teacher level and
are more appropriate for testing the buffering hypothesis which involves cross-level interactions.

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Table 1
Exploratory factor analysis: Collective pedagogical teacher culture.
Factor 1: Professional Culture Factor 2: Teacher Collaboration

Colleagues Share Beliefs 0.31 0.70

Teachers Like the Way Things are Run 0.79 0.19
There is Some Degree of Teacher Coordination 0.49 0.62
Teachers Coordinate Course Content −0.06 0.76
Principal Communicates Rules 0.82 0.08
Principal Communicates Effectively 0.78 0.25
Staff are Recognized for their Efforts 0.74 0.29
Administration is Supportive 0.83 0.06
alpha 0.88 0.57

Table 2
Bivariate correlations of teacher morale, accountability pressures, and workplace conditions. Schools and Staffing Survey; 2011–12 (N = 30,560).
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

[1] Job satisfaction

[2] Teacher satisfaction .460*
[3] School commitment .445* .316*
[4] District firings (%) -.055* -.056* -.048*
[5] New teachers (%) -.056* -.044* -.073* .117*
[6] Did not make AYP -.073* -.072* -.066* .049* .047*
[8] Professional Culture .595* .490* .374* -.046* -.021* -.063*
[9] Teacher Collab. .424* .353* .250* -.031* -.019* -.066* .518*
[9] Classroom auto. .282* .187* .173* -.038* -.009 -.076* .276* .129*
[10] School auto. .333* .275* .208* -.002 .024* -.060* .450* .296* .412*
[10] Job stress -.523* -.358* -.397* .042* .056* .062* -.412* -.283* -.254* -.272*
[11] Job insecurity .186* .122* .139* -.043* -.013 -.073* .143* .047* .229* .155*

* - p < 0.001.

pedagogical teacher culture, teacher stress, job security, and workplace autonomy. Hypothesis 2 (working conditions as mediators) is
assessed by noting how much the coefficients for teacher turnover, poor test performance, and district dismissals change in mag-
nitude between Model 2 and Model 3. The fourth model tests Hypothesis 3 by adding three interaction terms between workplace
culture and each indicator of accountability pressures. In analyses not shown, we entered these interaction terms separately to verify
the significance tests were consistent with those reported in Model 4.

3. Results

Bivariate associations provide preliminary evidence of the hypothesized associations between accountability pressures, working
conditions, and teacher morale. In the first three columns of Table 2, for example, district dismissals, teacher turnover, and failure to
make AYP are negatively associated with all three measures of teacher morale. The associations are also weak, much weaker than
those between teacher morale and our five indicators of working conditions. The correlations between satisfaction and relational trust
are particularly strong. Job stress is also a powerful correlate of teacher morale. Finally, for the most part teachers provide more
negative accounts of their working conditions when they work under greater accountability pressures. Professional culture, teacher
collaboration, and autonomy are lower, on average, and job stress and insecurity are higher in schools that have more turnover, that
fail to make AYP on accountability exams, and that operate in districts where dismissals are more common. These bivariate asso-
ciations are broadly consistent with Hypotheses 1 and 2 and our argument that accountability pressures demoralize teachers due to
negative changes in their working conditions.
Formal tests of the hypotheses using logistic multilevel models are presented in Table 3 through 5. The baseline model predicting
teacher morale (Model 1) indicates school- and teacher-level factors that past research has shown to be significant for teacher
satisfaction and intentions to quit. Keeping in mind the generally high levels of teacher satisfaction that characterize the profession
(see Appendix A), teachers are more satisfied on average at schools where they have a greater degree of autonomy, a lower degree of
job stress, job security, fewer low income and nonwhite students, and at traditional public schools as compared to charter schools.
Older teachers, women, and teachers of color are more satisfied than other teachers, on average, and teachers with advanced degrees
and tenure are less satisfied.
Accountability pressures are consistently and negatively related to teacher morale, even controlling for the many characteristics
of schools and teachers that comprise the baseline model. Turnover at the district and school levels and failing to make AYP are
estimated to undermine teacher job satisfaction, and Hypothesis 1 is thus strongly supported in the case of teachers' job satisfaction.
While statistically significant, these associations may or may not be substantively important. To get a sense of the magnitude of the
estimated effect of failing to make AYP, for example, the odds ratio indicates that working in a school that did not make AYP is
associated with 9% lower odds of agreeing as opposed to disagreeing that a teacher is generally satisfied with their job (taking the

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Table 3
Multilevel ordered logistic regression of job satisfaction. Schools and Staffing Survey, 2011–12 (N = 30,560). Logit coefficients and standard errors
(logit cut-points omitted).
[1] [2] [3] [4]

Accountability Pressures
District dismissals (%) −0.022*** −0.010* 0.035
(4.25) (2.10) (1.19)
Recently hired teachers (%) −0.009*** −0.005* −0.018
(3.82) (2.12) (1.28)
Did not make AYP past year −0.192*** −0.090** −0.128
(5.76) (2.82) (0.67)
Working Conditions
Professional culture −1.680*** −1.657***
(62.83) (39.22)
Teacher collaboration −0.753*** −0.792***
(18.31) (10.51)
Influence in school procedures 0.179*** 0.179***
(6.19) (6.18)
Autonomy in classroom 0.384*** 0.384***
(13.13) (13.12)
Teacher job stress −1.198*** −1.198***
(53.37) (53.36)
Worry about losing job −0.135*** −0.135***
(8.99) (8.99)
Prof. cult. x dismissals 0.001
(0.24)
Collaborate x dismissals −0.021
(1.68)
Prof. cult. x recent hires −0.001
(0.41)
Collaborate x recent hires 0.007
(1.13)
Prof. cult. x didn't make AYP −0.029
(0.70)
Collaborate x didn't make AYP 0.043
(0.53)
School-level controls
Nonwhite students (%) −0.007*** −0.006*** −0.001* −0.001*
(10.86) (9.25) (2.18) (2.21)
Low income students (%) −0.005*** −0.004*** −0.002*** −0.002***
(6.48) (5.58) (3.43) (3.43)
(Table 3, cont'd)
School size (100s) −0.001 0.000 0.002 0.002
(0.42) (0.07) (0.78) (0.80)
Charter school −0.217** −0.134 −0.315*** −0.318***
(2.82) (1.70) (4.21) (4.24)
School has formal evaluations −0.047*** −0.048*** 0.01 0.01
(4.51) (4.57) (0.89) (0.90)
Teacher-level controls
Highest degree −0.065*** −0.065*** −0.047* −0.047*
(3.58) (3.57) (2.33) (2.34)
Years of Experience (centered) 0.000 −0.001 0.001 0.001
(0.02) (0.29) (0.55) (0.54)
Tenured at current school −0.057 −0.070* 0.037 0.037
(1.91) (2.32) (1.14) (1.16)
Age (centered) 0.007*** 0.008*** 0.007*** 0.007***
(4.27) (4.41) (3.39) (3.40)
Female 0.055* 0.052 0.252*** 0.252***
(1.99) (1.89) (8.20) (8.20)
Hispanic 0.308*** 0.286*** 0.218** 0.217**
(4.95) (4.57) (3.19) (3.17)
Black 0.319*** 0.335*** 0.159* 0.158*
(4.97) (5.20) (2.26) (2.26)
Asian 0.053 0.06 0.031 0.031
(0.49) (0.55) (0.26) (0.26)
Pacific Islander −0.048 −0.0345 −0.183 −0.181
(0.19) (0.14) (0.65) (0.64)
American Indian −0.077 −0.074 0.307* 0.307*
(0.68) (0.65) (2.41) (2.42)
District-level error variance 0.076 0.068 0.022 0.022
School-level error variance 0.416 0.407 0.113 0.114

*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

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K. Erichsen and J. Reynolds Social Science Research 85 (2020) 102347

exponent of the coefficient of −0.09 gives an odds ratio of 0.91).

Teaching working conditions have a more dramatic estimated impact than accountability pressures on whether teachers are
satisfied with their current position. The results in Model 3 show that professional culture increases satisfaction while job stress and
worries about job security detract from it. These results are consistent with past studies, though few if any examine all of these
workplace conditions at once or try to model how they are related to accountability pressures. The effect sizes are also substantial,
and largest for professional culture. Converting the ordered logit slopes for professional culture and teacher collaboration to odds
ratios of 5.37 and 2.12, respectively, the results in Model 3 suggest that a one unit increase on the scale of professional culture is
associated with about 5 times the odds of being satisfied with teaching. A one unit increase in teacher collaboration is associated with
about 2 times to the odds of being satisfied with teaching.
Working conditions mediate much of the association between accountability pressures and job satisfaction. Comparing Models 3
and 2, the slope coefficients for district dismissals, teacher turnover, and failure to make AYP, diminish by 116, 87, and 113 percent,
respectively. The results are consistent with Hypothesis 2 concerning the mediating role of working conditions. In terms of the three
indicators of accountability pressures, the coefficient for teacher turnover shows the smallest reduction from Model 2 to 3, and this is
likely due to imprecision in the measure. Some schools have larger numbers of new teachers due to growth and additional openings,
as opposed to the previous year's voluntary and involuntary departures. Or, some proportion of new hires are the result of the
departure of lower-performing teachers, which under the right conditions leads to better school performance (Adnot et al., 2017).
These issues may also underlie the small magnitude of the coefficient for recently hired teachers relative to the district dismissal rate.
Returning to Table 3, the final model tests for a buffering effect of collective pedagogical teacher culture by adding interaction
terms, with a clear result. While collective pedagogical teacher culture is critical for sustaining teachers' feelings of job satisfaction, a
strong professional culture of trust and collaboration does not buffer teachers from the negative effects of accountability pressures. All
three interaction terms are non-significant in Model 4, and Hypothesis 4 is not supported.
Overall the results for job satisfaction show that accountability pressures undermined this aspect of teacher morale to some
degree, and that associated differences in working conditions and especially relational trust appear to explain much of the demor-
alizing context of teacher dismissals, turnover, and poor school performance on high-stakes tests. No support is found for the hy-
pothesized buffering effect of relational trust.
Analyses of teacher satisfaction (Table 4) and commitment to remain at the school (Table 5) yield parallel findings, i.e., support
for Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2 but no support for Hypothesis 3, in that none of the interaction terms are significant in Model 4.
Accountability pressures not only diminish teachers' stated intentions to remain at their current school, they are also significantly
related to the odds they actually stay in their current position over time. Table 6 reports analyses that predict whether teachers
remained in their schools the following year as compared to switching schools or leaving teaching altogether. Teachers are less likely
to remain at their current schools when working in districts with high dismissal rates or in schools that have higher turnover or
underperform on accountability tests.
Working conditions play an important role in many teachers' decisions to leave their current schools, and accounting for these in
Model 3 appears to mediate the estimated effects of turnover and failure to make AYP. There is less evidence of mediation, and not all
of the working conditions are significantly associated with the odds of staying, compared to the other multivariate models in Tables
3–5. This is because job dissatisfaction is just one reason teachers give for leaving their positions—others include changes in personal
circumstances and retirement (Carver-Thomas and Darling-Hammond, 2017). Nonetheless, professional culture and job stress again
stand out at the most significant workplace conditions in predicting teacher turnover. Consistent with earlier results, none of the
interactions with professional culture and teacher collaboration are significant.
Though not one of our hypotheses, a compelling issue is whether accountability pressures make up a meaningful part of the
associations between school economic and racial composition and teacher morale. Recall that the percentages of low income students
and students of color are negatively related to job satisfaction, teacher satisfaction, and school commitment. Comparing how much
those coefficients change from Model 1 to 2 is indicative of how much the negative associations are due to increased levels of
turnover and failure to make AYP at high poverty, high minority schools. Comparing the models indicates that accountability
pressures are part of the reason for the associations between student socio-demographics and teacher morale. In Table 2, for example,
the coefficients for percent low income and percent nonwhite decrease by around 15 percent from Model 1 to 2. An exception is for
percent nonwhite when analyzing school commitment (Table 5); the slope for percent nonwhite does not notably change between the
first and second models. In general though the results are consistent with the claim that accountability practices engender negative
personnel dynamics at low-income schools and schools attended mostly by students of color, dynamics that hurt teacher morale and
undermined educational goals by increasing teacher dissatisfaction and risk of turnover.

4. Discussion

Most policy interventions and public school reforms share the ultimate aim of broadly improving educational achievement in the
U.S., and increasing the skills, knowledge, and productive work habits of youth. Indeed, the promise of the public school systems rests
on the notion that there is a reasonable expectation of benefiting from attending school and applying oneself (as opposed to other
possible pursuits), benefits that accrue to acquired human capital, academic credentials, and social networks, for example. Reforms
also sometimes attempt to increase educational equity by tackling inequalities in educational access and achievement that result from
the social stratification of our families and communities. The largest inequalities are by economic status and across racial/ethnic
groups, and school choice and accountability reforms mandated that efforts to improve school performance include progress among
the lowest performing students.

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K. Erichsen and J. Reynolds Social Science Research 85 (2020) 102347

Table 4
Multilevel ordered logistic regression of teacher satisfaction. Schools and Staffing Survey, 2011–12 (N = 30,560). Logit coefficients and standard
errors (logit cut-points omitted).
[1] [2] [3] [4]

Accountability Pressures
District dismissals (%) −0.024*** −0.015** 0.001
(4.08) (3.03) (0.05)
Recently hired teachers (%) −0.013*** −0.008** 0.001
(4.54) (3.24) (0.10)
Did not make AYP past year −0.290*** −0.202*** −0.585***
(7.50) (6.18) (3.40)
Working Conditions
Professional culture −1.687*** −1.742***
(66.65) (43.94)
Teacher collaboration −0.524*** −0.522***
(13.72) (7.45)
Influence school policy 0.262*** 0.263***
(10.11) (10.12)
Autonomy in classroom 0.083** 0.085**
(3.02) (3.07)
Teacher job stress −0.778*** −0.777***
(38.01) (37.98)
Worry about losing job −0.060*** −0.061***
(4.37) (4.39)
Prof. cult. x dismissals 0.004
(0.63)
Collaborate x dismissals −0.011
(0.89)
Prof. cult. x recent hires −0.001
(0.34)
Collaborate x recent hires −0.003
(0.56)
Prof. cult. x didn't make AYP 0.107**
(2.71)
Collaborate x didn't make AYP 0.08
(1.06)
School-level controls
Nonwhite students (%) −0.009*** −0.007*** −0.004*** −0.004***
(11.41) (9.49) (5.84) (5.87)
Low income students (%) −0.005*** −0.004*** −0.003*** −0.003***
(6.66) (5.46) (4.85) (4.85)
(Table 4, cont'd)
School size (100s) −0.005 −0.003 0.00 0.00
(1.54) (0.86) (0.12) (0.13)
Charter school 0.026 0.123 0.098 0.096
(0.29) (1.33) (1.24) (1.22)
School has formal evaluations −0.056*** −0.058*** 0.011 0.011
(5.24) (5.42) (1.05) (1.05)
Teacher-level controls
Highest degree −0.054** −0.054** −0.009 −0.009
(3.02) (3.04) (0.50) (0.51)
Years of Experience (centered) 0 0 0.002 0.002
(0.18) (0.03) (0.74) (0.73)
Tenured at current school −0.132*** −0.145*** −0.048 −0.048
(4.40) (4.82) (1.60) (1.60)
Age (centered) 0.007*** 0.007*** 0.006*** 0.006***
(4.25) (4.35) (3.33) (3.32)
Female −0.013 −0.017 0.097*** 0.097***
(0.50) (0.64) (3.48) (3.47)
Hispanic 0.229*** 0.213*** 0.113 0.115
(3.72) (3.44) (1.82) (1.85)
Black 0.149* 0.163* −0.093 −0.0892
(2.34) (2.56) (1.45) (1.39)
Asian 0.137 0.143 0.153 0.153
(1.28) (1.33) (1.38) (1.38)
Pacific Islander 0.16 0.16 0.0365 0.0405
(0.63) (0.63) (0.14) (0.16)
American Indian −0.267* −0.263* 0.008 0.005
(2.37) (2.34) (0.07) (0.05)
District-level error variance 0.154 0.143 0.074 0.073
School-level error variance 0.901 0.879 0.377 0.379

*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

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K. Erichsen and J. Reynolds Social Science Research 85 (2020) 102347

This paper sought to shed light on the teacher dynamics that may contribute to the lackluster record of recent accountability
reforms. Specifically, we attempted to estimate how much accountability pressures in public schools fuel teacher dissatisfaction and
turnover and thus undermine reformers' efforts to increase achievement in schools. Though students benefit when low quality in-
structors leave, involuntary dismissals make up a small percent of annual teacher departures, and turnover of unqualified teachers is
likely the exception to the rule (Carver-Thomas and Darling-Hammond, 2017). Teachers who are satisfied with aspects of their jobs
stick with their schools, even in challenging times, and students learn more when teachers enjoy their jobs and are not looking to
leave at the next opportunity (Johnson et al., 2012; Moller et al., 2013).
We conceptualized accountability pressures as taking the form of high teacher turnover, poor school performance on account-
ability tests, and high levels of teacher dismissals in the surrounding district that signal systemic public school challenges. By directly
measuring aspects of the broader employment context that constitute accountability pressure, we go beyond past studies of the
impact of state accountability systems on teacher morale and turnover that have relied instead on trend analyses (Clotfelter et al.,
2004; Grissom et al., 2014). We examine the impact of accountability policies through dismissals and AYP pressures, rather than test-
stress alone (Ryan et al., 2017). We hypothesized that these pressures undercut teacher morale, especially at schools that lack a strong
professional culture of trust and collaboration among the staff. Analyses of a national sample of public school teachers in the 2011-12
school year confirmed that all three of our indicators of teacher morale suffered under conditions of district dismissals, teacher
turnover, and poor school performance, taking into account a large number of important teacher and school characteristics that also
contribute to teacher morale. These accountability pressures were also predictive of the odds that teachers left their schools in the
following year, as indicated in the 2012-13 Teacher Follow-Up Survey. We thus found strong support for the hypothesis that ac-
countability pressures hurt teacher morale.
A second goal of the paper was to ascertain how contexts of high accountability pressures affect teachers, and we considered four
broad characteristics of teacher working environments. Do these pressures impact teachers through a loss of autonomy, such when
teachers in struggling schools are forced to give up activities not directly tied to accountability test taking, or have to sacrifice
classroom time and student attention to increase mentoring in tested topics? Or, are teachers affected by a loss of job security, as
NCLB and other state reforms authorize school closings and staff replacement, or otherwise undercut teacher tenure in public school
systems? Alternatively, are teachers suffering from work overload and an increase in job stress due to state mandates that require
teachers to achieve impossible student gains? We surmised that a fourth possible mediator/mechanism would be especially im-
portant: a strong collective pedagogical teacher culture. Without collective pedagogical teacher culture, schools can become revol-
ving doors through which inexperienced teachers enter and disgruntled teachers depart (Brill and McCartney, 2008). Do account-
ability pressures fracture these critical workplace relationships that scholars see as key to school success and teacher satisfaction?
The analyses indicated that collective pedagogical teacher culture, workplace autonomy, teacher stress, and worries over job
security mediate much of the association between accountability pressures and teacher morale (contrary to Ryan et al., 2017).
Furthermore, consistent with past research that stresses the significance of workplace relationships for teacher satisfaction and
turnover (Bryk and Schneider, 2002; Simon and Johnson, 2015; Stearns et al., 2015), we found that a workplace culture of pro-
fessionalism and collaboration matters most for predicting teacher morale in general and for linking accountability pressures to
morale. Teaching in a school where there is less trust and collaboration among the staff has the largest predicted negative influence
on teacher morale, and ancillary analyses (in which mediators were added to the model one at a time) confirmed that most of the
effects of teacher turnover, poor school performance, and district dismissals on morale operate through collective pedagogical teacher
culture.
The second most important mediator by a large margin is teacher job stress. Teachers report significantly higher stress levels when
working in schools and districts with more dismissals, turnover, and poor school performance (Table 2), and job stress has predicted
effects on morale that come close to that of professional culture. Job stress is just as important as professional culture when predicting
teachers' intentions to remain at their current school or transfer elsewhere (Model 3, Table 5). Job stress is thus a critical factor
shaping teacher job satisfaction, and past studies of teacher morale have often omitted this aspect of teacher working conditions (e.g.,
Ma and MacMillan, 1999; Renzulli et al., 2011; Stearns et al., 2014; Weiss, 1999; cf. Johnson et al., 2012).
Professional culture, teacher collaboration, and job stress are much more important for teacher morale than autonomy or job
security. It is not surprising that concerns over job security are relatively rare and have a weaker role in shaping teacher morale, since
most public school systems still have teacher tenure policies. Indeed, half of the teachers in our sample of full-time teachers from the
2011-12 SASS reported they have tenure, so the risk of dismissal is fairly low. However, this may change in the future as state
legislatures and reform groups push measures intended to limit or sunset tenure in public schools. It was more surprising that
autonomy was less important for understanding variations in teacher morale, given the emphasis other scholars have placed on this
working condition as a determinant of teacher job satisfaction (Renzulli et al., 2011) and a casualty in the implementation of NCLB
(Brint and Teele, 2008). While it is true that school and classroom autonomy are significantly associated with teacher morale, the
predicted effect size is much smaller than that of professional culture, teacher collaboration, or job stress and autonomy does not
mediate much of the association between accountability pressures and teacher morale. Our results are thus more in line with the work
of Stearns et al. (2015), Bryk and Schneider (2002), Johnson et al. (2012), and others who stress the centrality of workplace re-
lationships, teacher networks, and a supportive administration for teacher morale.
Our last goal was to test the hypothesis that a strong collective pedagogical teacher culture, characterized by trust and shared
values, is protective against teacher workplace stressors including pressures due to accountability reforms. For example, Stearns et al.
(2015) found that low classroom autonomy only diminished the job satisfaction of kindergarten teachers who taught in schools
lacking a strong professional culture of trust and shared values. Autonomy had no effect on teacher satisfaction for those who
benefited from a strong professional culture. We tested whether accountability pressures had a smaller negative effect on teacher

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K. Erichsen and J. Reynolds Social Science Research 85 (2020) 102347

Table 5
Multilevel ordered logistic regression of school commitment. Schools and Staffing Survey, 2011–12 (N = 30,560). Logit coefficients and standard
errors (logit cut-points omitted).
[1] [2] [3] [4]

Accountability Pressures
District dismissals (%) −0.016*** −0.006 0.028
(3.44) (1.30) (1.11)
Recently hired teachers (%) −0.012*** −0.010*** −0.005
(5.68) (4.65) (0.42)
Did not make AYP past year −0.197*** −0.128*** −0.166
(6.44) (4.41) (0.99)
Working Conditions
Professional culture −0.981*** −0.962***
(43.61) (25.72)
Teacher collaboration −0.195*** −0.178**
(5.28) (2.62)
Influence school policy 0.093*** 0.092***
(3.65) (3.63)
Autonomy in classroom 0.110*** 0.110***
(4.16) (4.15)
Teacher job stress −1.071*** −1.071***
(53.21) (53.21)
Worry about losing job −0.093*** −0.093***
(6.89) (6.89)
Prof. cult. x dismissals 0.008
(1.36)
Collaborate x dismissals −0.022
(1.94)
Prof. cult. x recent hires −0.004
(1.33)
Collaborate x recent hires 0.001
(0.22)
Prof. cult. x didn't make AYP −0.007
(0.18)
Collaborate x didn't make AYP 0.023
(0.31)
School-level controls
Nonwhite students (%) −0.007*** −0.006*** −0.002*** −0.002***
(10.55) (9.02) (3.84) (3.85)
Low income students (%) −0.004*** −0.003*** −0.002** −0.002**
(6.30) (5.36) (2.80) (2.81)
(Table 5, cont'd)
School size (100s) 0.012*** 0.014*** 0.018*** 0.018***
(4.67) (5.24) (7.14) (7.15)
Charter school −0.211** −0.126 −0.206** −0.207**
(3.01) (1.76) (3.06) (3.08)
School has formal evaluations −0.030** −0.030** 0.007 0.007
(2.95) (3.03) (0.7) (0.72)
Teacher-level controls
Highest degree −0.128*** −0.129*** −0.129*** −0.129***
(7.39) (7.41) (7.17) (7.17)
Experience (centered) 0.022*** 0.021*** 0.028*** 0.028***
(10.72) (10.39) (13.02) (13.03)
Tenured at current school 0.042 0.025 0.133*** 0.134***
(1.51) (0.90) (4.62) (4.65)
Age (centered) 0.019*** 0.019*** 0.019*** 0.019***
(11.51) (11.66) (11.01) (11.01)
Female 0.162*** 0.158*** 0.312*** 0.313***
(6.22) (6.06) (11.51) (11.53)
Hispanic 0.312*** 0.292*** 0.214*** 0.213***
(5.28) (4.93) (3.55) (3.53)
African American 0.305*** 0.318*** 0.232*** 0.233***
(5.00) (5.20) (3.69) (3.70)
Asian 0.187 0.195 0.231* 0.227*
(1.79) (1.87) (2.13) (2.10)
Pacific Islander −0.261 −0.256 −0.284 −0.283
(1.14) (1.12) (1.18) (1.17)
American Indian −0.224* −0.215* −0.007 −0.006
(2.11) (2.03) (0.06) (0.05)
District-level error variance 0.032 0.028 0.017 0.017
School-level error variance 0.34 0.328 0.139 0.139

*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

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K. Erichsen and J. Reynolds Social Science Research 85 (2020) 102347

Table 6
Multilevel logistic regression of stayers vs. movers/leavers. Schools and Staffing Survey and Teacher Follow-Up Survey, 2011–2013 (N = 3,430).
Logit coefficients and standard errors.
[1] [2] [3] [4]

Accountability pressures
District dismissals (%) −0.029* −0.031* 0.097
(2.23) (2.34) (1.19)
Recently hired teachers (%) −0.017* −0.01 −0.02
(2.57) (1.49) (0.49)
Did not make AYP past year −0.211* −0.177 −1.693**
(2.25) (1.87) (2.85)
Working conditions
Professional culture −0.271*** −0.257*
(3.57) (2.17)
Teacher collaboration −0.23 −0.516*
(1.73) (2.18)
Influence school policy 0.06 0.054
(0.70) (0.64)
Autonomy in classroom 0.125 0.131
(1.36) (1.42)
Teacher job stress −0.422*** −0.422***
(6.27) (6.27)
Worry about losing job 0.139** 0.136**
(3.00) (2.95)
Prof. cult. x dismissals −0.002
(0.11)
Collaborate x dismissals −0.0567
(1.59)
Prof. cult. x recent hires 0.005
(0.62)
Collaborate x recent hires 0.00
(0.00)
Prof. cult. x didn't make AYP −0.097
(0.76)
Collaborate x didn't make AYP 0.759**
(2.83)
School-level controls
Nonwhite students (%) −0.004* −0.003 −0.001 −0.001
(2.04) (1.50) (0.56) (0.61)
Low income students (%) 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.003
(0.74) (1.17) (1.49) (1.52)
(Table 6, cont'd)
School size (100s) 0.021** 0.021* 0.025** 0.025**
(2.58) (2.56) (2.96) (3.06)
Charter school 0.438** 0.616*** 0.570** 0.567**
(2.62) (3.48) (3.20) (3.18)
School has formal evaluations 0.04 0.038 0.054 0.051
(1.23) (1.17) (1.61) (1.53)
Teacher-level controls
Highest degree 0.086 0.089 0.097 0.092
(1.43) (1.48) (1.59) (1.52)
Years of experience (centered) −0.005 −0.006 −0.005 −0.006
(0.72) (0.91) (0.77) (0.83)
Tenured at current school 0.526*** 0.496*** 0.524*** 0.536***
(5.07) (4.76) (4.97) (5.07)
Age (centered) −0.017** −0.017** −0.019*** −0.0187***
(3.11) (3.06) (3.32) (3.32)
Female 0.255* 0.246* 0.301** 0.301**
(2.57) (2.50) (3.00) (3.00)
Hispanic −0.014 −0.045 −0.043 −0.04
(0.07) (0.23) (0.22) (0.21)
African American −0.077 −0.041 −0.041 −0.048
(0.40) (0.21) (0.21) (0.25)
Asiana 0.986* 0.985* 0.853* 0.830*
(2.39) (2.40) (2.05) (2.00)
American Indian −0.139 −0.137 −0.104 −0.107
(0.35) (0.35) (0.26) (0.27)
District-level error variance 0.183 0.172 0.168 0.162
School-level error variance 0.477 0.439 0.378 0.379

*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

a
Includes a small number of Pacific Islanders, too few to be captured as a separate group.

12
K. Erichsen and J. Reynolds Social Science Research 85 (2020) 102347

morale for teachers who reported a stronger collective pedagogical teacher culture at their schools. The analyses indicate no evidence
to support this hypothesis. A collective pedagogical teacher culture does not shield teachers from the demoralizing effects of dis-
missals, high turnover, and teaching in a school that fails to make AYP. Perhaps this is because accountability pressures derive from
imposed mandates over which teachers and administrators have relatively little control. In other words, professional culture may help
teachers compensate for a lack of autonomy within the classroom, but it does not appreciably help teachers cope with broader
organizational-level and district-level constraints. Future research should continue to explore the practices that help teachers sustain
morale in struggling schools and districts, and also explore new variations in state accountability practices that may mitigate issues of
frustration and turnover at low-performing schools (Close et al., 2018).
This paper also speaks to the literature that seeks to explain the association between student economic and racial/ethnic com-
position and teacher morale. Past research has had only partial success at identifying the traits of schools and workplace conditions
that account for the lower teacher morale and higher turnover at high poverty, high minority schools (e.g., Ladd, 2011; Simon and
Johnson, 2015). The workplace conditions we examined—culture, autonomy, stress, and security—did explain most of these asso-
ciations away; the slopes for student economic and ethno-racial composition often decreased by 50–85 percent between Models 1 and
3 in Tables 3–5. Accountability pressures appear to be part of the reason for lower morale in high poverty, high minority schools
(Model 1 vs. Model 2), but local working conditions are of course much more significant in this regard. Thus, our analyses provide
some evidence of a vicious cycle of poor performance, teacher dissatisfaction, and desire to leave the school which may then result in
higher turnover and ongoing issues with student performance.
There are some limitations to this study. First, most of our analyses are cross-sectional and thus limited in terms of making claims
of causal associations between accountability pressures and teacher morale, or the causal direction. Some portion of the associations
captured in our analyses may be due to the impact of low teacher morale on teaching effectiveness, student performance, and
consequent accountability pressures like failing to make adequate yearly progress. We attempted to mitigate some of these concerns
by analyzing actual teacher turnover with the TFS. Another unanswered question is whether lower job satisfaction and school
commitment are more prevalent among the low performing teachers that NCLB-era accountability measures were intended to weed
out. The SASS and TFS also lack measures of teacher effectiveness, leaving open the possibility that only low performing teachers who
should be worried are insecure about their positions and report lower job security, satisfaction, and plans to stay. An important
question to address is whether the dismissal of low performing teachers significantly improves the morale of the remaining teachers.
Looking ahead, accountability reforms continue even as NCLB has been retired to the proverbial bookshelf. The ESSA abated some
of the accountability pressures mandated under NCLB, providing more state-control over their accountability systems. However,
many states continue to use the large scale testing and accountability measures that were in place under NCLB (Close et al., 2018;
Ryan et al., 2017). Additionally, many federal and state officials remain keen for states to expand school choice programs, priva-
tization, and other measures that would appear to undermine traditional public school teacher employment prospects. Our analyses
suggest this bodes poorly for teacher morale. Teacher job satisfaction and commitment suffer in districts where dismissals are more
commonplace and in schools where student performance on accountability tests is repeatedly below targets and a significant percent
of the teaching staff is new. Dominant trends in national and state education policy point to a future where public school teaching is
less desirable. Further, the student learning implications of these trends and findings are of great concern and deserve greater
scholarly attention.

Appendix A. Summary statistics of measures. Schools and Staffing Survey, 2011–12 (N = 39,560)

A. Dependent variables.

Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly

“I am generally satisfied with Disagree Disagree Agree Agree
being a teacher at this school.” 2.8% 6.6% 36.7% 53.9%
Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly
“The teachers at this school Disagree Disagree Agree Agree
like being here.” 5.4% 17.8% 46.8% 30.0%
Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly
“I think about transferring Agree Agree Disagree Disagree
to another school.” 8.6% 21.1% 21.0% 49.4%

B. Predictors and controls.

Accountability pressures Mean Std Dev Min Max

Teacher dismissals in district (%) 1.75 3.07 0 25
Recently hired teachers (%) 7.77 6.82 0 25
School did not make AYP past year 0.51 0.50 0 1
Working conditions
Relational trust 3.05 0.65 1 4
Influence in school procedures 2.18 0.61 1 4
Autonomy in the classroom 3.35 0.54 1 4
Teacher job stress 1.73 0.73 1 4
Worried about losing job 2.24 1.00 1 4
School-level controls

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K. Erichsen and J. Reynolds Social Science Research 85 (2020) 102347

Low income students (%) 44.88 27.31 0 100

Nonwhite students (%) 35.28 30.47 0 100
School size 825.29 637.08 3 4945
Charter school 0.05 0.22 0 1
Teacher-level controls
Master's degree or more 0.54 0.50 0 1
Years of experience 13.43 9.72 1 51
Tenured at current school 0.51 0.50 0 1
Age 41.75 11.60 20 78
Female 0.68 0.47 0 1
Hispanic 0.05 0.22 0 1
Black 0.05 0.22 0 1
Asian 0.02 0.12 0 1
Pacific Islander 0.00 0.05 0 1
American Indian 0.01 0.11 0 1

Appendix B. Supplementary data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2019.102347.

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