Abstract
Studies have shown that teacher burnout levels have risen since the inception of the Standards-based School Accountability Movement in the 1980s. Burnout is usually driven by job stress and is mitigated by supportiveness of principals and co-workers. Diminishing interpersonal trust heightens burnout and can be circular. High-stakes accountability, in which job security is threatened, conjoined with changes in school safety, and budgetary pressures, not only exacerbate burnout, but they diminish the capacity of peers and supervisors to provide social support. Trust relationships are more likely to thrive when they are organic in nature and based on positive affect and interpersonal cohesion. Externally-imposed accountability systems, such as specified under No Child Left Behind, emphasize contractual, bureaucratic trust, and assume that the school districts and their employees cannot be trusted to perform competently and benevolently. The result is an altered social contract. The shift from organic to contractual trust weakens relationships and accelerates burnout. Longitudinal data on burnout among samples of more than 8,000 Texas teachers, surveyed between 2002 and 2012, are linked to changes in stress, trust, accountability standards, school safety, and budgetary cuts. The loss of teacher trust in relationships with administrators, colleagues, parents, and students has paralleled shifts in accountability standards and related external factors.
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Dworkin, A., Tobe, P. (2014). The Effects of Standards Based School Accountability on Teacher Burnout and Trust Relationships: A Longitudinal Analysis. In: Van Maele, D., Forsyth, P., Van Houtte, M. (eds) Trust and School Life. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8014-8_6
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