Welcome to the Arizona Teacher Working Conditions Survey!

2007 Results Now Available

Governor Napolitano believes that excellent teaching is critically important to innovation and the long-term success of the Arizona economy. Recent research shows that the design, leadership, and culture of schools have a direct influence on student learning and teacher retention. To that end, it is essential to create school working environments that are supportive of recruiting and retaining the best teachers throughout the state of Arizona.

It is with this in mind that the Governor's Office along with the Arizona Education Association has sponsored this survey on teacher working conditions. The resulting data will be customized for and provided to individual schools and districts for school improvement planning, faculty conversations and consideration of policies and programs. The Governor's Education Policy Advisor and the Governor's P-20 Council will also consider the responses of educators in inform their recommendations to the Governor and state policy decisions.

The Arizona Teacher Working Conditions Survey is about hearing from those who know best about what is happening in schools – educators themselves. The survey provides all educators with the opportunity to privately and anonymously provide input on critical issues such as time, facilities and resources, empowerment, leadership and professional development.

A teacher working conditions data report is available for the State of Arizona as a whole as well as every participating school and district with a sufficient response rate (50 percent). The data represents the unique and collective perception of educators regarding teaching and learning conditions in their school community.

Governor Napolitano, the Arizona Education Association, the Arizona School Administrators Association and the Department of Education hope this data will guide school improvement planning, faculty conversation, community engagement and consideration of district and state policies and programs.

Arizona Teacher Working Conditions initiative partners have also created resources to help schools and communities review and respond to data regarding conditions for teaching and learning in each school. For example, the Center for Teaching Quality has developed the Teacher Working Conditions Toolkit (www.teacherworkingconditions.org) to help communities and schools better understand and respond to data from the survey. The Toolkit includes examples of schools that have addressed teacher working conditions successfully, checklists and concrete ideas to provide a roadmap for activity on working condition reforms.

The 50 percent response rate threshold helps ensure the results are representative of the population of educators in each school. The minimum response rate also protects the anonymity of respondents. For those schools and districts that reached this percent response rate, data is accessible from this site (http://www.aztwc.org/reports/).

Various technical assistance opportunities will also be available for all participating schools to learn more about sustainable reform strategies to improve conditions for teaching and learning. In the coming months, please return to visit this site to learn more about these opportunities.

“To prepare students for a world of competition and innovation, Arizona needs to ensure that there is a qualified teacher in every classroom. Ensuring working conditions that support teachers’ efforts will be critical to their success.”

-Governor Napolitano