Bargaining for retention: the pervasiveness of specific contract provisions and their bearing on teacher retention in high school districts in Illinois

Ramos, Eric Joel

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124274 Copy

Description

Title

Bargaining for retention: the pervasiveness of specific contract provisions and their bearing on teacher retention in high school districts in Illinois

Author(s)

Ramos, Eric Joel

Issue Date

2024-04-15

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Bruno, Paul A

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Bruno, Paul A

Committee Member(s)

• Roegman, Rachel
• Herrmann, Mary
• Huang, Wenhao

Department of Study

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ed.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

Collective Bargaining, Education, Teacher Retention, Working Conditions, Teacher Prep Time, Teacher Collaboration, Teacher Workload, High School

Abstract

In education today, qualified and experienced teachers are essential for student academic success. This dissertation explores the relationship between teacher retention, teacher working conditions, and school district demographics through the combination of the contents of virtually all high school district’s collective bargaining agreements in the state of Illinois and various publicly available school district demographic data. Through a comprehensive review of the available literature on teacher retention, this study identifies the factors influencing teacher retention with a focus on bargainable working conditions. I explore how factors such as workload, prep time, and collaboration opportunities combine to inform a teacher’s decision to stay with or leave a school district. I utilize a mixed methods approach to investigate the content of contracts through document analysis combined with available district demographic and teacher retention data. My results contribute to the literature by offering a rich data set of the content of actual contracts. I utilize this data set to examine the connection between the content of high school collective bargaining agreements in Illinois and teacher retention. Based on my results that showed few statistically significant correlations between bargainable working conditions and teacher retention, I encourage a more holistic approach to understanding the nuances of bargaining and teacher retention. Although my results do not support the inclusion or exclusion of any to the explored provisions, there are many other factors that should be considered.

Graduation Semester

2024-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2024 Eric Ramos

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