Browsing by Subject "yhdysvaltalainen koulujärjestelmä"

Educational accountability isn’t a new phenomenon, but it has grown stronger in the United States during the past decades. There have been two large educational amendments taking place in the 21th century: No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015. Due to these laws, the process of assessing teacher quality through student performance on standardized tests has become normal practice in school districts across the whole country. Standardized tests are used to both encourage students to study harder and teachers to put more effort into their instructional practices. In the context of this study, the concept of accountability means that teachers are almost exclusively held accountable for student performance. The aim of this study is to examine what kind of studies have been conducted on the effects of accountability on teachers during the last years and find out how teachers experience accountability in their daily work. This study was conducted as a literature review. For this piece of research, certain international studies from years 2012 to 2018 were considered. The selected studies were carried out in the U. S. school system. The most significant results were sorted out into subclasses based on the themes emerged from the studies. On one hand, I charted how teachers experienced accountability in their work, and on the other hand, the tangible ways accountability practices affected their work. According to my study, educational accountability was related to teacher stress, and it also had a negative effect on teachers’ job satisfaction. The stress emerged from accountability even leaded to teacher burnout. Consequently, teachers contemplated leaving teaching and working on other fields instead. This stemmed partly from the fact that teachers didn’t feel like they received enough support in their work. They also felt their work got automatized as they were expected to teach to the tests. In addition, teachers were worried about the impact standardization had on their students. They were especially concerned about students with special needs.