Nearly 110,000 educators across North Carolina shared their opinions in this year’s Teacher Working Conditions Survey, setting a record response rate of 91 percent for the state’s biennial comprehensive survey of educator perceptions that was first given in 2002.
The results of the survey, administered this spring and presented Wednesday to the State Board of Education, showed that 87 percent of educators agreed with the statement: "Overall, my school is a good place to work and learn."
In all, nearly 98 percent of schools and 100 percent of the state’s school districts met the minimum response rate of 40 percent to generate usable data, which schools and districts apply as a part of their ongoing improvement planning. A total of 1,679 schools achieved a participation rate of 100 percent on the survey, which covers a broad range of issues related to educator job satisfaction.
“Thank you to the nearly 110,000 school-based educators across the state who took the time to take the survey,” said State Superintendent Mark Johnson. “Knowing how to support educators starts with listening to them, and this survey is one of the ways we’re gathering their views about our schools.”
North Carolina’s Teacher Working Conditions Survey is administered through a partnership between NCDPI and the New Teacher Center, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the development of a high-quality teaching force.
The survey is a statistically valid and reliable instrument to assess whether educators have working conditions in their school that support effective teaching. Teachers, school administrators and other school-level educators are asked about their levels of agreement with statements focusing on eight key areas:
- Use of time
- Community support and involvement
- Facilities and resources
- Managing student conduct
- Teacher leadership
- School leadership
- Professional development
- Instructional practices and support
An analysis of this year’s survey results, presented to the board by the New Teacher Center showed that overall, educators had the strongest level of agreement (87 percent agreement) with items related to instructional practices and support, which focuses on data and support available to teachers to improve instruction and student learning. Educators showed the lowest levels of agreement (69 percent) with items pertaining to the use of time, which includes items about available time to plan, to collaborate, to provide instruction, and to eliminate barriers in order to maximize instructional time during the school day.
The category of managing student conduct showed the largest drop from the 2014 survey, with the percentage of educators with positive responses declining from 81 percent to 77 percent in 2018.
The New Teacher Center analysis also showed a correlation between strong positive survey responses and school performance grades. On all eight survey categories, schools with higher grades on the A-F scale also had higher percentages of educators with stronger levels of agreement on the survey items.
See highlights from the 2018 survey (pdf, 994kb).
More information about this year's survey as well as results from previous years is available at ncteachingconditions.org.
About the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction:
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction provides leadership to 115 local public school districts and 160 charter schools serving over 1.5 million students in kindergarten through high school graduation. The agency is responsible for all aspects of the state's public school system and works under the direction of the North Carolina State Board of Education.