Spring Issue 2013-14
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Advocacy
Kansas Music Teacher Satisfaction and Issues Increased in the Past Two Years That Contribute to Stress for Music Teachers
Over the past four years, Kansas Music Educators Association (KMEA) has investigated the impact of budget cuts on music education programs across the state. On the state level, we were able to identify a loss of 515 music teaching positions dating back to 2007 as reported by current Unified School Districts (USDs). Districts were reporting that while positions were not being filled after a retirement or resignation, all teaching duties were being passed on to current music staff with little to no additional financial or time compensation. Therefore, the KMEA Advocacy Committee requested that a section be included in last year's survey to determine the level of satisfaction among current music teachers in the State of Kansas. The results revealed a decline in satisfaction over the time aligned with the budget cuts. While the trend of losing positions is slowing, the damage of the cuts is just now starting to reveal itself. Remaining proactive, the advocacy committee focused its efforts this year on defining the source or sources of this apparent decline in job satisfaction among Kansas' music educators. Below are the preliminary findings of the Advocacy Committee's survey regarding music teacher job satisfaction. The 2013 survey was designed to identify overall job satisfaction of Kansas Music Educators as well as factors that contribute to stress and dissatisfaction so that the KMEA leadership can begin developing new and refining current support mechanisms for Kansas' music teachers. The survey indicated that overall stress in the job of teaching music has increased over the past two years as reported by 61% of the music teachers that completed the survey. The following are the factors that are found statistically significant in the percentage of responses in these categories. Current job satisfaction: Based on results revealed in last year's (2012) survey, 23% of responding districts reported that their teachers were indicating a diminished job satisfaction when compared with prior years. Results of the current (2013) survey suggest that the level of satisfaction with teaching music in schools has remained consistent over the past two years, although 27% of the music teachers who responded to the current survey indicated that their current satisfaction with teaching music in schools was less than positive (neutral, dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied) with 15% reporting being dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. This percentage is supportive of the findings in the earlier survey. Sixty-one percent of music teachers also indicated that their overall level of stress had increased over the past year as compared with the two years prior. Furthermore, 41% of teachers reported an increase of stress of teaching within their expertise while 63% of those who responded reported that they experienced an increase in stress when teaching outside of their area of expertise. Forty-one percent (41%) of music teachers identified that teaching within their expertise has increased, with 64% reporting that stress is greater when teaching outside of their expertise. Concerns that have been expressed in past surveys have been echoed in the current survey. (See Table 1) Table 1
Issues that were reported to have altered the expectations of teaching music over the past three years include an increase on scheduling conflicts and student remediation (65%), increased student to teacher ratio (57%), additional responsibilities (58.3%), teaching outside one's area of expertise including outside of music (41%), a decrease in funding (39.7%), lowering of student achievement (33.5%), and decreasing contact time (28%). (See Table 2) Table 2
Respondents were asked to determine which of these areas directly contributed to their stress levels in their current teaching positions. The following is a description of the percentages of how the educators perceive the various stressors in their career. (See Table 3) Table 3
* Stressors were found to be significant beyond the .05 level (p <.05)
Beyond the stressors reported, the researchers looked specifically at grade level and specific area of teaching with respect to band, choir, orchestra, or general music. Significant findings were found in several areas including contact time, scheduling conflicts, and teaching responsibilities. Below are areas that were found to be significant:
Teaching in general: With the loss of music teaching positions over the past four years, some music teachers have new responsibilities of teaching outside of their expertise. It may be teaching music outside of their primary area or even outside of music altogether. Clearly, the expansion of responsibility beyond one's area of expertise is a cause of stress indicating that professional support may be warranted for these teachers to deal with the new teaching responsibilities. In the midst of these challenges, it is important to note that music teachers report good relationships with their administration, have support from within their school and communities and feel their responsibility of student learning across all disciplines in their schools. In other words, music teachers hold a strong self-concept supported by the school and community as indicated by statistically significant positive responses on all related questions. This area must continue to be explored to determine the relationship between self-efficacy, administrator and community connections, and job satisfaction. Stressors in the Music Teaching Environment: When music educators were asked how areas of teaching contributed to their overall job stress, several were exposed as significant stressors for current music educators. Overall stressors indicated by the music teachers include a lack of time to collaborate with teachers in other disciplines (62% of the responses); lack of music integration within other disciplines (54%), and a general belief that much of the professional development being provided does not directly relate to the discipline of music (50%). Within each of these areas, specific stressors were revealed as having direct impact upon music teacher satisfaction. Specific issues that contribute to music teacher stress Contact Time/Scheduling Conflicts Challenges experienced with contact time were significant at the high school level and more specifically in the choral area (as compared to non-choral). Contact time did not seem to be a factor with increased stress in the elementary and middle school general music teachers, which might indicate that schools have not altered the amount of music class time for these areas. One particular source of conflict identified was teaching in Block Schedules or alternate schedules that remove consistency of daily rehearsals. While contact time presents its challenges with delivering the content, a derivative issue within contact time, scheduling conflicts, was found to be significant. Scheduling conflicts appears to be a consistent contributor to stress experienced in music teaching in the secondary (middle/high) school level. Disaggregated by teaching level, 67% of the teachers in the middle school level indicated scheduling conflicts as a source of stress and an even greater percentage, 76% of the high school respondents. This finding supports the former significant response from a lack of contact time in the high school level. Disaggregated by music area, band teachers (67%) showed an increase in stress over the past two years because of schedule conflicts whereas the choral area had a significant percentage reporting contact time as the source of increased stress. One possible cause of either contact time or scheduling conflicts could be an increase of students missing class due to remediation. Half of the respondents from the high school level reported an increase in stress due to students being pulled from their music class, including 71% from the middle school level. This was not as evident for the elementary level as only 29% indicated an increase of stress over the past two years caused by students missing music class due to remediation. Further investigation is needed to clarify the prevalence of this phenomenon within the state. KMEA must continue to monitor loss of music instruction due to remediation requirements by districts, possibly stemming from increased emphasis on standardized testing or other issues. One other facet of that appears related to scheduling is increased stress due to the number of students in the music class (60% of the respondents). It is impossible to identify from this question if 'number of students' means an increase in number of students leading to instructional challenges or a decrease with stress caused by insufficient numbers. Disaggregating the data per music area, the only significant percentage of response in this issue came from the band area (43%) causing the researchers to speculate that the stress in this performance area might be due to a loss of students causing instrumentation challenges. Professional development on adapting to scheduling challenges and strategies that alleviate such conflicts might contribute to increased job satisfaction for music teacher. Intervention in policy may also be warranted. State Mandated Assessments State mandated assessments were listed a strong indicator of stress among our membership; however, there appears to be a difference between impact to general music and performance ensemble teachers in relation to stress contributed by state mandated assessments. Nearly half of the performance teachers (43% of the band and 30% of the choral) indicate an increase of job- related stress over the past two years due to state mandated assessment, but there is no significant increase from the general music area. This increase could indicate non-music entities in schooling vie for increased classroom time to cover tested content, reflecting the fore-mentioned increase of students being pulled out of music for remediation. While the assessments themselves are not the cause of the stress, they act as the source for decisions or actions that contribute to the stress of music educators. Music teachers reported that this increased focus on student testing has lowered the amount of class time in many cases limiting the amount or quality of learning that can be achieved. A challenge of students being pulled out of music class or missing because of non-musical activities continues to be a challenge in providing the quality of education desired by music teachers. Class Offerings Of those that provided descriptors of the stresses associated with scheduling conflicts, the greatest number described an increase of academic and non-academic options that compete for students' time in the middle and high school levels. Of the most concerning are the academic conflicts that are perceived as expected or required for advanced achievement, such as Career Pathways, AP courses, Community College courses, and Math or Reading remediation. Some have described the loss of their best students due to these conflicts. Many music teachers described an increase of elective classes scheduled against music causing students to make choices between music enrollment and broadening their educational experience. Some inferred the cause being a decrease in teachers across the district resulting in limited scheduling options for these courses. A few music teachers described having lost music teachers in the district resulting in limiting when a music course can be offered, thus creating a conflict with other classes. Student Achievement Student Achievement appears to be a strong source of stress for music teachers. A decrease in student motivation as it relates to limited achievement is reported to be a major contributor to stress. Professional development that provides effective strategies to address motivational issues appears to be one of the strongest desires of music teachers. Of the music teachers that indicate there has been a decrease in student achievement over the past two years, the majority attributes increased limitations of instructional contact time as the primary cause. Limited instruction limited achievement, and in some cases, contributed to a decrease in student motivation. Other specific challenges to student achievement included lack of parental support, increased financial challenges, and increased expectations on student time beyond music resulting in lowered student home practice. On the other hand, nearly half of the responses in relation to student achievement indicated that no change has occurred in the past two years with some teachers indicating an increase of student achievement due to an increased focus on student learning in their school. A number of new teachers reported that improved teaching as a result of professional development led to an increase of student achievement. There is a strong indication that the professional development offered to music teachers has a strong impact on student achievement. Teachers would welcome additional professional development in motivational techniques, high-impact instructional techniques, effective teaching within limited timeframes, and dealing with student challenges such as student mobility, ESL, special needs, low income issues, and other factors impacting learning. Teaching Responsibilities One other increase of stress over the past two years was an increase in teaching responsibilities (64% of the high school teachers, with 88% of the string teachers). Although this survey cannot identify the cause for this, it may be that high school teachers have been given responsibilities from other areas or additional responsibilities in the music program due to restructuring of music positions. There also appears to be a clear connection between teaching responsibilities and the aforementioned contact time, for the largest number of responses indicating additional challenges in contact time are a result of additional responsibilities recently given to music educators. Further investigation must be conducted to determine why this might be happening. Extra Notes: There are several areas that were revealed during initial analysis that did not fall clearly within any of the aforementioned categories. Those were economic and time challenges for students to participate outside of the designated class times, specifically those that are offered before or after school. It is also important to note that there does not seem to be any additional stress reported due to diversity of students, inclusion of disabilities, or English as a Second Language. Data strongly supports this finding for all levels and all music teaching areas. Furthermore, there does not seem to be any significant difference of response between full-time and less than full- time music teachers. Summary: Results of the current survey suggested that the level of satisfaction with teaching music in schools has remained consistent over the past two years. Furthermore, 27% of the music teachers who responded to the current survey indicated that their current satisfaction with teaching music in schools was less than positive (neutral, dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied) with 15% reporting being dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. As a result, 52% have indicated that they have considered leaving the profession. The current survey also identified factors that contributed to stress and dissatisfaction such as teaching responsibilities, contact time, state testing, lack of collaboration, teaching outside of expertise, scheduling conflicts, and enrollment. Therefore, the researchers suggest that every opportunity be explored to begin developing new professional development opportunities and refining current support mechanisms for Kansas' music teachers. Return to top |
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