An Investigation of Teachers’ Perceptions of School Competitiveness and Organizational Work Environment in a Rural Area

Abstract

School choice is expected to generate competition and thereby lead to organizational improvements. Using teachers’ original survey responses, this study uses the market culture within the competing values framework and finds substantial variation in how rural schoolteachers perceive competitive pressure and school climate. When we restricted our analysis to teachers from low-income schools, the relationship between competition and work environment is amplified for some organizational climate variables. Findings, which suggest that higher levels of perceived competition are associated with somewhat higher morale and stronger organizational cultures, are important for school leaders and policymakers.

Keywords:

• school choice
• rural areas
• teachers
• perceptions of competition
• organizational climate

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. When a traditional public school student switches to a charter school campus, the charter campus begins earning what is called FSP (Foundation School Program) state aid as of the switch date based on students’ ADA (average daily attendance).

2. Whereas school districts in much of the United States are tied to municipal and/or county governments, Texas has by far the largest number of independent school districts (ISDs). The concept of ISDs evolved in the early 1900s when rapid population growth brought about by the oil boom began to overwhelm local school systems. Communities began organizing ISDs, funded by their own taxing districts, in order to manage the population increase and support public education.

3. http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/ED/htm/ED.25.htm.

4. This research was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of Stephen F. Austin State University (Case #AY2016–1277), University of Texas-Tyler, and University of Arkansas-Little Rock. All participants provided informed consent via the Qualtrics survey.

5. Using data from 1607 organizational research studies in the years 2000 and 2005 in 17 refereed academic journals, Baruch and Holtom (2008) noted the average response rate for data collected from individuals was 52.7%. While Fincham (2008) claimed that response rates approximating 60% should be the goal for most research, response rate of above 20% is considered adequate (Poynton, DeFouw, & Morizio, 2019; Van der Stede.