Obligación alimentaria entre compañeros permanentes

Our study also provides insight into the effects of policy on teacher work. Although Evans’ framework of morale accounts for the influence of the policy context, the central focus is on the school-level dynamics. In our study the effects of division and state-level policy pressures were strong, and led us to a system for categorizing the qualities of policy both in its design and implementation. Some of these categories overlap with Evans’ categories of fit (e.g., fairness),

however others are new (e.g., coherence, burden). Our focus on the policy context is likely due to the fact that Evans’ model was developed in the early 1990’s as the standards and accountability era of school reform was in its early stages. Over the past twenty-five years the logic of standards and accountability has come to dominate the education policy agenda in the United States as well as in the UK where Evans’ work was done. These reforms – which in the United States are best represented by the Bush-era No Child

Left Behind legislation – are characterized by a

number of initiatives that structure teacher work.

This includes state-mandated content standards, standardized curriculum, and standardized assessment systems. These policies are also driven by a logic of high stakes accountability tied to both to the outcomes of the standardized reforms (e.g., standardized test scores), as well as compliance reporting with prescribed procedures (e.g., data reporting mandates). These accountability systems then become the basis for making high stakes decisions about the success of students, the success of teachers, and the success of schools.

In our study, the effects of high stakes accountability on teachers were evident. Many teachers in our study expressed frustrations at the loss of curricular autonomy, at the increased pressure for performance on standardized tests,

Study Team Perspective

Autumn Nabors Assistant Director of

Curriculum and Instruction

Chesterfield County Public Schools

If you were talking to a principal or a teach- er and you had to tell them about the study or recommend some strategies, are there any take-home bullets that you’d like to mention?

Building a culture of trust is vital. Leadership needs to set the example, and teachers need to own the responsibility for building that trust, too. Leadership needs to keep the bar high, to set the example that success can be achieved, to not settle for mediocre, but they should understand that teachers want to do a good job, so help your people get there, scaffold and support them the whole way…and build some excitement in the school culture. I think that’s key.

and on increased workloads related to the reporting of data. These findings are in line with the research on the effects of control-oriented accountability systems on the work of teachers.8 These effects even held among teachers that identified as high morale. For example, even at BMS – what would appear to be a best case scenario (high SES, freedom from accountability pressures, strong principal) – a number of teachers expressed cynicism about the effectiveness of the policies in terms of supporting quality teaching and student learning. Others expressed feeling lucky that they were, by virtue of their subject or school placement, exempt from these policies.

Also, in line with the research was our observation that the negative effects of accountability-driven policies were experienced with more intensity and frequency among the schools with the lowest socio-economic status students and the most academic challenges.9 For example, at VMS the concern about losing state accreditation led to increased control over teacher work and increased burdens related to accountability reporting. As one teacher stated regarding the principal’s requirement of providing documentation, “if [the state] comes in, they are going to say, ‘Where is this? Where is this? And, where is this?’... I try to tell people she is not being a bully by making you show. She’s teaching you how to cover your rear end.”

This brings us back to the relationship between teacher morale and professionalism. In section 2, we provided an overview of Lee Shulman’s six characteristics of professions.10 Shulman’s vision of the professional outlines key ideas about the nature of professional knowledge, professional judgment, professional learning, and the professional community. Shulman also 8 Ingersoll, 2003; Nichols & Berliner, 2007; Ravitch, 2010

9 Lipman, 2004

10 Shulman, 1998

emphasizes the moral and ethical commitments that motivate the work of the professions. This framework of professionalism is one that has been embraced by educational scholars interested in the preparation and professional work of teachers.11 At the end of section 2, we drew connections between Evans’ morale framework and the idea of teacher professionalism. We suggested that the problem of fit between a teacher and the school in which she/he works may, in essence, reflect a conflict in visions of teacher professionalism. In our study we found this to be true. Teachers’ frustrations often highlighted the ways that the work of teaching, as defined by the professional culture of the schools and the policy systems that informed school culture, were out of sync with their own beliefs about what teachers’ work should entail. In our study we saw evidence of this in the tendency among high morale teachers to express strong frustration about the incoherence and inefficiencies of the policy systems that governed their work. For example, Kyle, who liked his school and valued the skill and commitment of his principal, expressed significant frustrations about the pacing guides and assessment systems that he felt compromised his ability to make professional judgments. He said, “There’s going to be a day when it gets too much.” This sheds troubling light onto the factors that influence teacher retention.12 While morale might be good in relation to a particular school placement, in the face of increasing policy pressures on teachers’ work, it might not be enough to keep teachers in the classroom. This finding confirms scholarship that explores the negative effects of policy on teacher professionalism.13

One theme of this study is the idea 11 Berliner, 2001, Bransford, et al. 2005; Cuban, 1992

12 Ingersoll, 2001, 2003; Kraft, Marinell, & Yee, 2016

that teaching is changing. On the one hand this is what we would expect. As Shulman’s framework of professionalism suggests, one of the characteristics of a profession is that it continually evolves to cope with the uncertainty inherent in a field of practice. Schools and teachers also face ever-changing economic, political, social, and cultural contexts of communities and society. For example, many schools are facing rapid demographic shifts that require teachers to meet the needs of growing numbers of students from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. As professionals, teachers must be on the

forefront of addressing these challenges of great social importance. However, over the past two decades there have been shifts not just in the ways that teachers, as professionals, must adapt to changing contexts, but more fundamentally in what professionalism within teaching means. As we move forward and look for solutions to the problem of low teacher morale, it is important that the question of professionalism be at the center of the discussion.