No Child Left Behind: Positive trends in work environment, job satisfaction?

Several recent studies have examined the impacts of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) on school operations and student achievement. This study complements that work by investigating the law’s impacts on teachers’ perceptions of their work environments and related job attitudes, including satisfaction and commitment to remain in teaching. 

Using four waves of the nationally representative Schools and Staffing Survey, which cover the period from 1994 to 2008, the researchers document overall trends in teacher attitudes across this time period and take advantage of differences in the presence and strength of prior state accountability systems and differences in likely impacts on high- and low-poverty schools to isolate NCLB effects. 

Perhaps surprisingly, the study shows positive trends in many work environment measures, job satisfaction, and commitment across the time period coinciding with the implementation of NCLB, but there is no evidence that teacher job satisfaction or commitment has changed in response to NCLB. The researchers find, however, relatively modest evidence of an impact of NCLB accountability itself. 

There is some evidence that the law has negatively affected perceptions of teacher cooperation but positively affected feelings of classroom control and administrator support.