School Leadership and Accountability

It is widely accepted that changes to schooling wrought by the pandemic will have negative effects and that those effects will not impact all students and staff equally. We have partnered with VDOE to conduct vital equity-focused longitudinal analyses of the data contained in the Virginia Longitudinal Data System.

Using a biennial working conditions survey of all licensed personnel in Virginia public schools, as well as administrative data, and interview data with teachers and principals, this project aims to contribute to our collective understanding of the relationships between teacher working conditions, teacher retention, and equitable student outcomes.

This project was a researcher-practitioner partnership between the University of Virginia and the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), and was funded by IES. This project supported VDOE’s efforts to systematically measure school climate and working conditions, provide targeted technical assistance to schools to improve their school climate and working conditions concerns, and incorporate school climate metrics into Virginia's school accountability system in order to help VDOE gain a better understanding of how school climate is related to student education outcomes.

Principle Investigator: Luke C. Miller

In partnership with the Virginia Department of Education, we administered the inaugural Virginia Working Conditions Survey to licensed teachers and staff in all Virginia public schools as well as a new Virginia School Climate Survey to elementary and high school students. The surveys were administered between January and March 2019 and all divisions and schools were provided feedback reports summarizing the responses of their teachers, staff, and students.

Researchers are examining the effect of school working conditions on teacher retention, especially among effective teachers who decide to leave teaching in New York City.