De-Professionalized and Demoralized: A Framework for Understanding Teacher Turnover in the Accountability Policy ERA

ABSTRACT

This study uses a secondary analysis of the Schools and Staffing Surveys (SASS) and Teacher Follow-up Survey (TFS) from the National Center for Education Statistics to examine relationship between teachers’ perception of de-professionalization and demoralization and turnover in the accountability policy era from the mid-1990 s through mid-2000 s. Hierarchical linear modeling was applied to compare changes in this relationship across time and between public and private school teachers. Results show that the relationship of teacher de-professionalization to turnover significantly decreased during the accountability policy period, while the relationship of demoralization to turnover significantly increased during the accountability policy time period.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The Schools and Staffing Survey was administered seven times between its first issue in 1987 and its last issue in 2011. However, it was only administered in three- to four-year cycles. After the 2010–2011/2011–2012 issue, NCES redesigned the SASS and this redesign was first issued under the new name, the National Teacher and Principal Survey, in 2015–2016 (see NCES, n.d.).

2. NCES creates confidentiality edits in the TFS that can include intentionally missing data for individual survey respondents. However, the overall distributions and turnover detail in the reported data are carefully maintained (Graham et al., 2011).