More Alike or More Different Over Time? Exploring Urban Charter and Public School teachers’ Characteristics and Working Conditions

ABSTRACT

Using six waves of the Schools and Staffing Survey and the National Teacher and Principal Survey that span two decades, our study explores the differences between urban charter and traditional public school teachers and how those differences become more or less pronounced over time. During this time frame, the charter sector experienced substantial growth and this growth could have the effect of making charter schools more like traditional public schools. We find that charter school teachers are different from their traditional public school counterparts in both their personal characteristics and working conditions, but grow more similar in their satisfaction/commitment and turnover.

KEYWORDS:

• charter school
• job satisfaction
• organizational commitment
• public school
• teacher turnover
• urban education
• working condition

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2023.2291220

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Effective principals can be measured in multiple ways, including levels and styles of administrative support, communication style, years of experience as principal, or instructional experience and leadership.