Priority School Priorities: Motivation and Morale - A Qualitative Descriptive Study

Abstract

Post-No Child Left Behind educational accountability policies and the sanctions embedded within them require those who work in low-performing Priority Schools to change their practice in order to improve rapidly the performance of their schools. These educators are expected to accelerate student achievement rates faster than those who work in schools that have not been identified with such a label. An obvious behaviorist element exists in how teachers in these schools are expected to overhaul pre-existing approaches teaching and learning. What is less pronounced though, is how the behaviors of teachers’ motivation and morale (two variables associated with increased productivity and organizational success) are impacted when the sanctions of current educational accountability policy are imposed onto their schools? A qualitative descriptive study was conducted to investigate this dynamic. This study included teacher participants from two Michigan Priority Schools. In addition, these schools have received an additional and previously unprecedented sanction of supervision by the State (of Michigan) School Reform Office – the assignment of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Data supporting the findings of this study were to be collected through several teacher interviews. The teacher interview data provided findings to each of the study’s five research questions. Open coding was used to unearth these findings, which pointed to the impact of such a policy on participating teachers’ motivation and morale in these settings.