What Can We Learn From International Comparisons of Teacher Satisfaction?
In discussing teacher working conditions, burnout, and exit from the profession, I have remained narrowly focused on the field of education in the United States. However, a comment on Curricular Push-Down asked an excellent question that made me curious: what’s going on with teacher satisfaction in other countries?
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) collects that data on its member nations. They conduct the Teaching and Learning International Survey, or TALIS, which allows us to compare indicators of educator job satisfaction over time and by country. The data is here for the most recent survey, administered in 2018. In the United States, the number of responding “teachers age 50 or less wanting to leave teaching within the next five years” is about 17%. This is higher than the OECD average of 14%, but nowhere near the highest rate of anticipated teacher attrition. That honor goes to Saudi Arabia, at 35%. The United States’ contiguous neighbors are much lower, with Mexico at 9% and Canada at 7%. Clearly, there’s significant variability in teacher satisfaction across different countries. The tricky question is, to what factors is that satisfaction correlated?
The OECD data is multifaceted, including compensation, hours, teacher feelings of self-efficacy, how highly valued teaching is as a profession in society, and more. Teacher satisfaction is the combined outcome of all of these variables. There is no one variable solely determining what makes a teacher happy in their job; all of these matter. One of the most interesting aspects of the TALIS is that it allows us to understand what aspects of teacher dissatisfaction are universal, and which are unique to specific countries and cultural contexts.
A 2020 study of particular interest to me examined the relationship between teacher satisfaction and school testing culture, drawing data from the 2013 TALIS. Their “results support past research that draws a direct line between an increased focus on student testing and decreased teacher satisfaction,” and that inclusion of test scores in teacher evaluation “reduce[s] the potential benefits of teacher appraisals by indirectly and negatively influencing teacher satisfaction by warping the teacher appraisal process.” It will not surprise in-service educators to learn that “as the testing culture intensifies, teachers’ overall satisfaction decreases.” This is true internationally, thus showing us that unhappiness with testing is not a phenomenon unique to the United States. In most OECD countries, high levels of teacher-reported stress are associated with significant administrative demands, and teachers report feeling more satisfied when they have autonomy in the classroom and receive regular feedback from supervisors. In these respects, American teachers have much in common with their international peers.
The OECD also offers helpful reports with more detailed analysis on an individual country-by-country basis. They illustrate that the United States is average or even higher than average in many respects of teacher satisfaction ratings when viewed as an aggregate whole. However, differences reveal themselves when the data is disaggregated by type of district. For example, if we revisit the measure “teachers age 50 or less wanting to leave teaching within the next five years,” the number is 26% in urban districts as opposed to 9% in rural districts. Similarly, teachers working in high-poverty school districts are more likely to report experiencing dissatisfaction with their salaries and significant stress in the workplace. Rural district teachers, meanwhile, are much less likely to have opportunities for collaborative professional learning with colleagues. It is important to remember that looking at national averages obscures the significant disparities between school districts in the United States, and it those disparities that make the situation of American teachers unique.
The United States is defined as a wealthy nation, but that wealth is not equally distributed. UNICEF published a 2018 report on education inequality in wealthy nations, evaluating factors from preschool access to academic achievement. Of 38 countries listed, the United States ranks 24th for education equality. The OECD collects data on income inequality for member nations, and ranks the United States as having the fifth highest income inequality, the fifth highest childhood poverty rate, and the second highest poverty gap, which is especially significant in light of the fact that American schools are locally funded. According to the OECD review of school funding resources, the United States is the only member nation where nearly 100% of funds are allocated and distributed to schools by regional rather than federal government, and it has the highest level of local control in school funding of any OECD member nation. The OECD reports that for its member nations, an average of “55% of initial public funds for schooling originate at the central government level…” In the United States, on average, less than 10% of school funding comes from the federal government. How does that affect the validity of TALIS data and comparisons, when it’s so hard to define what a representative educational context in the United States looks like?
International comparisons of teacher satisfaction are valuable in identifying what stressors are universal versus unique to specific cultural contexts. They show us the factors that are correlated with teacher satisfaction in most countries. However, their usefulness for making international comparisons is limited when one takes into account just how widely the experiences of American teachers vary. Are teachers in the United States more or less satisfied than their international counterparts? That’s difficult to assess when educators in suburban, rural, and urban districts may as well be teaching in different countries. In the end, it’s not as useful a question as: what factors make teachers more or less satisfied, and thus more willing to stay in the profession? That is where TALIS data is the most helpful. It reminds us that educators everywhere want fair compensation, greater autonomy, fewer standardized tests, and a supportive workplace culture.
