Student performance data, a central feature of school report cards, has become the major basis for educational accountability decisions in recent years. Even with that rise of performance-based accountability, other key factors influencing student achievement—school learning environment, teacher working conditions—have received scant public attention. In Quality Counts 2008, the EPE Research Center surveyed states to determine whether they collect data about school climate or working conditions from teachers and publicly report that information on a school-by-school basis. Results showed that only three states—North Carolina, Rhode Island, and South Carolina—conducted annual or biennial teacher surveys to obtain such statewide school climate information. At least 15 additional states are engaged in similar, although less comprehensive, efforts to measure school climate. Documented initiatives in those states include voluntary teacher surveys, parent or student surveys, and data collections that include some but not all schools.
For more state-by-state data on school climate and other topics, search the EPE Research Center’s Education Counts database.
SOURCE: EPE Research Center, 2008
