Dr. W.A. Kritsonis, Editor, NATIONAL FORUM JOURNALS

NATIONAL FORUM OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION JOURNAL
VOLUME 28, NUMBER 2, 2010-2011
THE IMPACT OF ANNUAL YEARLY
PROGRESS ON MIDDLE SCHOOL
PRINCIPALS JOB SATISFACTION
Gerard Foley
Mansfield Public Schools
Mansfield, MA
Steve Nelson
Bridgewater State University
ABSTRACT
The purpose of the current study is to examine the attitudes of middle
school principals in schools meeting AYP versus middle school
principals in schools that have not met AYP. As Congress debates the
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary School Act, better
known as the No Child Left Behind Act, many questions have surfaced
about the law’s effectiveness. While former Secretary of Education
Margaret Spellings has indicated that the law was designed with the
overall intent of helping schools that fall behind (Spellings, 2008), some
have argued that programs implemented under the law have had little
or no impact in helping failing schools. The failing designation, assigned
by the Federal government for schools that do not meet Adequate
Yearly Progress (AYP) may have the effect of threatening the ability of
educational leaders to implement the core goals of the schools
themselves.
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Introduction
E
ver since Horace Mann began his analysis of Massachusetts public education
state governments and more aggressively in recent decades the Federal
government has taken an increased interest in the effectiveness of school
systems. Both President Bush and President Obama have made or proposed
marked increases in federal involvement in education.
President Bush signed the landmark No Child Left Behind Act in
2002 requiring states to meet certain nationally set benchmarks if they
received federal money. Currently, President Obama has pledged to invest
$10 billion in public schools if states adopt standards and rules also laid out
by the Federal government (Duncan, 2009). His “Race to the Top” program
is the logical heir of the accountability movement that started with the 1983
report, “A Nation at Risk”. This accountability movement has had important
ramifications for public school districts nationwide.
President Obama’s Race to the Top program calls on all states to
apply for federal grants. Among the requirements for rewarding the states,
the Federal government will choose winners of the grants if the states have
internationally benchmarked standards, and use testing to determine growth.
If growth is not adequate in the eyes of the Federal government, the states
will have to institute “…far reaching reforms, replace school staff, and
change the school culture” (Duncan 2009). While there is no data available
on Race to the Top because it is in its infancy, the No Child Left Behind
Act’s requirements of testing and prescriptions for mandated reform do offer
some evidence of this type of education reform impact on schooling
particularly in the area of educational leadership.
In the midst of education reform, many states have reported that they
are finding it difficult to employ qualified principals with the ability to
address student achievement appropriately (Beaudin, 2002). Paradoxically
however, there appear to be more people with principal certification than
there are principal positions available (Beaudin, 2002, Miletello 2006). This
suggests that some factors have arisen that provide a disincentive for
qualified potential principals to seek that job. Pounder and Merrill (2001)
argue that one reason that may explain the dearth of qualified principal
candidates is the non-economic disincentives attached to the modern role of
the principal. The concurrence of increased federal involvement in public
28

Gerard Foley & Steve Nelson
schooling and the attrition of principals provoke questions about the
relationship between the two phenomena. If such a relationship exists then
the data provided by the federal mandate of reporting for Adequate Yearly
Progress (AYP) can be instructive.
The literature with regard to the impact of AYP
designation on principal’s attitudes in a comparison of
AYP and non AYP schools reflects four major areas of
concern: The No Child Left Behind Act, theories of job
satisfaction, factors related to principal’s job
satisfaction, and factors involved in the current
principal shortage.
In January of 2002, President George W. Bush signed The No Child
Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) which re-authorized the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA). NCLB is built upon four principles.
These are: accountability for results, more choices for parents, greater local
control and flexibility, and an emphasis on doing what works best based on
scientific research (US Department of Education, 2008). Under this law
individual states are required to set linear yearly targets for each school and
at risk subgroups so that by 2014 all students will be working at a proficient
or advanced level. To measure student performance adequately, states are
mandated to administer annual exams in math and reading to all public
school students in grades 3-8. A sample of students in grades 4 and 8 are
required to take the National Association of Education Progress (NAEP)
exams in math and reading to help the government determine if the state
exams are correlated to the NAEP.
If a school is not able to meet its improvement target for two
consecutive years, parents have the option of removing their child from that
school and placing them in another public or charter school. A school not
making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), defined as having students and
student sub groups achieve their annual benchmark for three consecutive
years (corrective action) must provide $500-$1000 for remediation of each
student. A school not making AYP four consecutive years (restructuring) is
subject to a host of sanctions including: reconstitution as a charter school,
takeover by a private management firm, and staff restructuring (U.S.
Department of Education, 2008). The presumption is that AYP will make
29

schools accountable to raise test scores for every child, hence the name given
to the legislation.
Research conducted by Nichols and Berliner (2007) with regard to
NCLB demonstrates that AYP measurements and NAEP are sometimes
incongruous. This suggests that some states are gaming the system and
creating statewide assessments that are easier to pass than the independent
national assessment. The authors further argue that “bubble kids” (p.76)
become the focus of school’s resources in an effort to engineer a positive
impact the school’s AYP designation. This triage effect means that schools
expend most of their resources on marginal students who have a greater
chance of shifting from one category to the next level indicative of
improvement. Consequently, this means that students who are not close to
the threshold receive relatively less attention and resources.
Recent quantitative research by Choi, Herman and Yamishiro (2007)
used longitudinal analysis in Washington State and came to a similar
conclusion as Nichols and Berliner (2007) with regard to the triage effect of
AYP status. In this study Choi et al. (2007) found that in some schools that
were making AYP, below average students were making considerable gains
but above average students made little. In other Washington schools above
average students were making significant gains but below average students
did not. The data from this study suggests that marginal students, regardless
of previous academic mastery are the focus of resources to move that student
to the next level of AYP designation in an effort to improve the large scale
score reporting required by NCLB. This triage effect may also be having an
impact on principals.
Pounder and Merrill (2001) conducted research with 170 assistant
principals in a western state and found that disincentives to the principalship
are often non-economic. These researchers found that the time demands of
the principalship are the most important disincentive to many candidates in
making the move to the principal’s office. This led the researchers to
conclude, “those candidates who may be interested in the position [principal]
…may need less potent disincentives to pursue the position (p.46)”. The
Pounder and Merrill (2001) study suggests that disincentives such as the loss
of autonomy of principals over their school’s educational mission and the
increased time demands of the position of principal are as important as
economic factors in attracting new candidates in searches for open positions
30

as principals. Therefore the pressure principals face in accommodating and
meeting AYP may compromise the attraction of the principalship. It may be
possible that the triage effect alleged by Nichols and Berliner (2007), Choi et
al (2007) also places pressures on principals that were not experienced prior
to an AYP designation. It is important to examine whether this prospect is
actually occurring.
The variable of job satisfaction and its relationship to job
performance has been the subject of tremendous research with emphasis on
one prominent study by Frederick Herzberg (Pietersen, 2005). While there is
debate about how to effectively measure job satisfaction, the common
aspects of job satisfaction can be split along the lines proposed by
Herzberg’s dual factor model (Hirschfeld, 2000).
Herzberg’s (1959) classic work about job satisfaction was based on a
dual factor model he described as a Motivation-Hygiene model. Hygiene
factors do not motivate people to work but do have the potential to create
dissatisfaction in workers. Herzberg included exogenous policies,
supervision, levels of autonomy, working conditions, benefits and salary in
this set of hygiene factors that may limit satisfaction. Motivators on the
other hand have the potential to create satisfaction and are important to
maximize in order to insure worker satisfaction. Herzberg included
recognition, achievement, potential for growth, and the inherent pleasure of
the work in this set of motivating factors. His thinking is particularly relevant
to this study’s assumption that a school’s AYP designation may be viewed as
a significant hygiene factor for middle level principals.
While Herzberg’s initial work is almost fifty years old, it is also still
relevant to the study of job satisfaction. Sachau (2007) argues that
Herzberg’s paradigm “…can help practitioners propose and evaluate
satisfaction and productivity programs (p379).” With the increasing
emphasis of positive psychological factors in the work place in recent years,
Herzberg’s two factor model provides a solid theoretical construct for
examining job satisfaction (Sachau, 2007).
Hallinger’s (2005) study of educational administrators asserts that
the impact of principals is largely exerted through their capacity to influence
classroom conditions and school culture. This influence of the leadership of
principals on student achievement remains second only to that of the
31

classroom teachers (Hallinger 2005, Beaudin et al, 2002). As a result,
educational leaders should focus on defining the educational mission and
helping schools create a positive school culture for staff and students
(Hallinger, 2005). The importance of this goal has become increasingly
difficult to address as the overall job expectations principals has grown and
expanded (Beaudin et al, 2002).
A link has been found between the motivation-hygiene model theory
and reports of principals in the field (Hill, 1994; Rayfield, 2004). While
monetary compensation was found to be significantly correlated with job
satisfaction, a stronger correlation with job satisfaction was found regarding
the relationship of principal’s to students and their relationships with
teachers and teacher’s working conditions. Furthermore, paperwork, an
overloaded schedule, lack of autonomy and political pressure from
government agencies were the most important negative factors cited by these
administrators (Hill, 1994, Militello, 2006, Rayfield, 2004). As teachers
become aware of the stresses on their leaders as a result of increased
performance expectations on principals these teachers may be more reluctant
as their careers progress to move into the role of principal.
Howley and Perry (2005) conducted interviews with teachers that
held administrative licensure to understand why these teachers had not made
a career move into the principal appointments. Although the path to the
principalship has historically been from the teaching ranks (Militello, 2006),
Howley and Perry (2005) concluded that teachers now are so impressed by
the disincentives involved in the principalship, many of them elect remain in
the classroom.
Much has been written about teacher shortages but “without
effective school leadership…the nation’s schools will not be able to advance
educational reform initiatives (Beaudin et al, p.1)”. Nonetheless a shortage
of qualified principals has been consistently reported nationwide (Beaudin et
al, 2002). The perceived disincentives and presumed pressures are no doubt
the reason for much of the resistance of teachers to vie for these
administrative leadership positions.
Beaudin et al (2002) have reported that in Connecticut more people
possess administrative licenses than at any point in history. Militello and
Behnke (2006) offer evidence that Massachusetts has almost twice as many
32

people licensed to be principals as there are principal positions in the state.
However both states report significant shortages in qualified applicants for
the position of principal. Clearly there are many potential candidates with the
proper training as educational leaders who are electing to steer a wide berth
of the problems and tensions associated with school leaders.
Research by Beaudin et al (2002) and Militello (2006) is instructive
as well when examining the responses of principals to the questionnaires of
the researchers. In both cases, salary is shown to be an issue for
administrators. Importantly, however, in both studies non-economic factors
also appeared to be extremely strong factors in attracting principals.
(Beaudin 2002, Miletello 2006, Conrad and Rosser 2006). Thus an
assessment of the impact of AYP designation as a potential disincentive for
those in or considering appointments in educational leadership is needed.
The present research examines the attitudes of middle school
principals in schools meeting AYP versus middle school principals in
schools that have not meet AYP.
The research questions addressed are:
1) Does a school’s AYP designation significantly correlate with
particular job satisfaction determinants related to principals
2) Does a school’s AYP designation impact overall principal job
satisfaction?
3) Does a school’s AYP designation impact specific determinants
of principal job satisfaction
Method
This is a causal-comparative study designed to measure the
relationship between mandated reforms placed on schools as a result of
failing to meet an Adequate Yearly Progress designation for two consecutive
years, and their principals’ overall job satisfaction and the specific factors
related to principals’ job satisfaction. The null hypothesis is assumed.
This study also performs correlational testing to determine if there
are identifiable variables associated with a school’s AYP status. A
correlational analysis is conducted on the entire population of the sample to
33

determine if there is a significant relationship between the demographic
variables and principal’s job satisfaction variables.
Sample
This study compares Massachusetts middle school principals’
reported job satisfaction in schools that have achieved AYP to those that
have not met AYP over two consecutive years. For the purposes of this
study, schools that have met AYP for two consecutive years are identified as
“AYP Schools” and those that have not met AYP for two consecutive years
are identified as “Non AYP Schools”.
To obtain a list of middle schools in Massachusetts a search was
done through the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary
Education website. The researcher restricted the search to Massachusetts
public schools serving grades six, seven and eight. 405 schools met this
criterion. To reduce the possible confounding effects of charter schools that
by their nature may be significantly different from traditional public schools,
the thirty-seven charter schools identified by the initial search were not
included for this study.
The research sample was subsequently drawn from two sources. The
first source was the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary
Education’s 2008 list of Schools and Districts Identified for Improvement,
Corrective Action, and Restructuring. These schools are Non AYP Schools.
The second was from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and
Secondary Education’s 1999-2008 AYP History Data for Schools. This list
was used to obtain AYP Schools. From these two lists the researcher
randomly selected100 schools and the email addresses of the principals or
the schools were obtained from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary
and Secondary Education District Profiles web page. The survey was coded
so that the researcher could disaggregate data by the AYP status of the
schools contacted. However, the researcher did not know the individual
identity of the schools.
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Instrument
The sample participants responded to a five point Likert Scale
survey with 17 questions relating to job satisfaction (Table 3.1) and eight
demographic questions that concerned gender, teaching experience, principal
experience, school setting, education, future professional plans, areas
associated with stress, and how strongly they would recommend the
principalship to a colleague. The survey used portions of three factors from
the Measurement of Job Satisfaction (MJS) (Traynor, Wade, 1993) an
instrument with a high degree of validity and reliability. This measure of job
satisfaction was developed to measure job satisfaction with regard to nurses
in the United Kingdom. Traynor and Wade (1993) found five significant
factors that related to job satisfaction in their study: personal satisfaction,
workload satisfaction, pay and prospects satisfaction, professional support
satisfaction, and training satisfaction.
Respondents rated their satisfaction on a scale from very satisfied to
very dissatisfied when asked about their level of satisfaction with particular
aspects of their job (Traynor, Wade, 1993). Test–retest reliability was
confirmed in the MJS study as was concurrent validity. In addition, the MJS
has been frequently been cited as a reliable and valid measure of job
satisfaction (Saane et al., 2003). In the current study portions of three of the
factors, personal satisfaction, workload as well as pay and prospect
satisfaction (Traynor, Wade, 1993) were used because these are likely factors
to be impacted by an AYP designation which is the focus of this study.
To make the design more relevant to education, some adjustment
was made to the MJS. Notably, one additional factor, AYP Satisfaction, was
added to the three factors used from the MJS. Pietersen (2005) has noted
that it is not uncommon to construct custom made questionnaires with the
practicality of the questionnaire in mind when using the MJS. Thus the
reliability of this partially new instrument needed to be assessed by
computing the overall internal consistency (Cronbach Alpha) of the job
satisfaction survey, and the consistency of the new factor (AYP Satisfaction).
The survey results were subjected to an SPSS and a reliability
analysis. The results are given in Table 1. The Cronbach Alpha values are
relatively high and indicate that the adapted instrument is a reliable measure
of the job satisfaction of principals.
35

Table 1
New Instrument of Principal Job Satisfaction
Scale Cronbach
Alpha
(n=46)
Mean SD
Overall job
satisfaction
.80 3.17 .45
AYP satisfaction .84 2.52 .70
Procedures
The 100 individuals in the survey sample were contacted via e-mail
in February, 2009. These principals were asked to complete a 25 question,
online survey about their perceptions of job satisfaction. Respondents were
reminded of the survey one-week later in a follow up email. Only one
response per school was allowed via the filtering software available to the
researcher. The email was successfully sent to 95 members of the survey.
Five emails were returned as undeliverable. 46 principals completed the
survey for a response rate of 48.4%. Principals were informed that they
would be provided with the overall results of the aggregated data. The
questions of the survey are displayed in Table 2. The respondents were
asked to record their level of satisfaction: very dissatisfied; dissatisfied;
neither satisfied nor dissatisfied; satisfied; or very satisfied with regard to
these 17 questions.
Table 2
Survey Questions
The Contribution I make to student learning.
The Overall impact I have on students.
The amount of autonomy I have.
The time available to me to work directly with students.
The time demands on my personal life
The time available after bureaucratic tasks
The time available for instructional leadership
The overall impact of NCLB on my school’s culture
The degree to which the accountability status of my school impacts the way
I have to work
The pressure I feel for my school to have a favorable accountability status.
36

Table 2 Continued
The fairness of AYP designations across grade levels
The amount of administrative time spent addressing AYP issues
The success of government mandates regarding educating students with
learning disabilities
The amount of job security I have.
The match between my job description and what I actually do
The degree to which I am fairly compensated
The degree to which I feel I made the right career choice in becoming a
principal.
Table 3 presents the demographic areas to which respondents were asked to
respond.
Table 3
Demographic Questions
How many years have you been a principal?
How many years did you spend as a teacher before entering the
principalship?
How would you describe your school setting (urban or non urban)?
What is the highest degree you obtained?
What is your gender?
How long do you plan to remain as a principal?
Which of these, workload issues, student issues, teacher issues, school board
issues, AYP issues do you associate with the most stressful part of your day?
How strongly (scale of 1-5) would you recommend the principalship to a
qualified colleague?
Delimitations
The relatively few AYP Schools in Massachusetts limit this study’s
sample. This fact led to a relatively small number (n=11) of AYP Schools
included in the study. In addition, the number of principals involved in the
study makes it impractical to conduct a factor analysis using the instrument.
Instead, the factor analysis conducted for the MJS by Traynor and Wade
37

(1993), and the high Cronbach Alpha Score for both the new instrument and
the AYP Satisfaction factor serve as a proxy for factor analysis.
Limitations
The survey was conducted online. It is possible that email messages
from a stranger were seen as spam and some principals may not have taken
the time to open the email and proceed to the site to take the survey. This
may have limited the response rate of the sample to 48.4%. Further, these
emails of necessity were sent to the participant’s work computers and
respondents may have been reluctant to report their perceptions of superiors
on school owned computers. Email however, was the most cost effective
and timely way for the researcher to attempt to retrieve the responses from
the sample.
Internal Validity
The selection of the groups in this case may threaten internal validity
because by their nature schools achieving AYP for two consecutive years
and schools not achieving AYP for two consecutive years may possess
certain attributes that are not accounted for in this study. For example it may
be that principals in Non-AYP districts face socio-economic challenges that
are the root of some dissatisfaction they feel with the job that is unrelated to
AYP designation. This may actually be responsible for the differences in
principal’s reported job satisfaction and these differences may have little to
do with personal satisfaction, workload satisfaction, pay and prospect
satisfaction, or AYP designation.
To reduce confounding variables, demographic information was
collected on the subjects. Furthermore the Measurement of Job Satisfaction
is a prescreened instrument with repeatedly high degrees of validity and
reliability and the adapted instrument used also had a very high degree of
reliability as reported in table 3.1. Nonetheless, only portions of the MJS
were used and this may impact the internal validity of the survey.
Reliability
The Measurement of Job Satisfaction has been tested for reliability.
The Cronbach alpha coefficient of the MJS contains factor scores ranging
from .88 to .93 demonstrating that this measure of job satisfaction has a high
38

degree of internal consistency and is thus a reliable instrument in a social
science setting. Furthermore, the MJS has been shown to be highly
correlated (.83 Pearson Product Moment score) to the Price Waterhouse
Survey of Retention and Recruitment thus demonstrating concurrent validity
(Traynor and Wade, 1993). In addition the slightly modified instrument has
been tested and the AYP Satisfaction Factor has been shown to have a
Cronbach alpha coefficient of .84 and the overall survey was shown to have
an alpha of .80 (see Table 1)
Findings
Data Analysis
With regard to the research question: Does a school’s AYP
designation significantly correlate with particular job satisfaction
determinants related to principals?
A Pearson Product Moment Correlation was computed for the AYP
status of the school with all other variables and demographic data. There is a
significant negative correlation between Non- AYP Schools and Urban
Schools. Also there is a significant negative correlation between Non-AYP
schools and the satisfaction that principals report on AYP’s impact on their
work. Furthermore, there is a significant positive correlation between Non-
AYP schools and the likelihood that principals in these schools would
recommend to others that they aspire to become principals. Table 4 reports
the results of these findings.
39

Table 4
Correlation with Regard to AYP Status
School
Setting
AYP impact
on work
Likely to
recommend
principalship
AYP
STATUS
Pearson
Correlation
Sig (2 tailed)
N
-.39
.
008**
46
-.30
.
043*
46
.30
.040*
46
*= Correlation is significant at 0.05 level or greater
**=Correlation is significant at 0.01 level or greater
In addition, a significant relationship was found between the number
of years that a principal was a teacher and several other aspects of job
satisfaction. Table 5 demonstrates that the longer a principal was in the
teaching ranks, the less likely they are to report that they had a positive
overall impact on students as principal. Also the more likely they are to
question their career choice in becoming a principal, and the less overall job
satisfaction they are likely to report.
Table 5
Correlation: Number of Years Principals Taught
Made the
right
Career
Choice
Overall
Impact On
Student
Total Job
Satisfaction
Number of
years spent
as a
teacher
before
moving
into
principal
role
Pearson
Correlation
Sig (2 tailed)
N
-.32
.032*
46
-.30
.041*
46
-.38
.009**
46
*= Correlation is significant at 0.05 level or greater
40

**=Correlation is significant at 0.01 level or greater
Overall AYP Satisfaction
With respect to the research question: Does a school’s AYP
designation impact a principal’s job satisfaction?
An independent two sample “t” test was conducted between AYP
Schools and Non AYP Schools with regard to the three factors of job
satisfaction in the instrument. There was a significant difference in scores
with regard to the AYP Satisfaction factor for Non AYP Schools (M=14.37,
SD=4.22) and AYP Schools (M=17.36, SD=3.101); t (44) =2.136, p =.05
Table 6 presents the results:
Table 6
Overall Satisfaction with AYP
Status N Mean Std.
Deviation
T Score Df Sig
0
1
11
35
17.36
14.37
3.41
4.22
2.136 44 .038*
(0 status indicates that school has met AYP for 2 years, 1 status indicates that
the school has not met AYP for 2 years)
*= The mean difference is significant at 0.05 level or greater
Specific Determinants of Satisfaction
With respect to the research question? Does a school’s AYP
designation impact specific determinants of principal job satisfaction?
An independent two sample “t” test was conducted between AYP
Schools and Non AYP Schools. A significant difference was observed with
regard to the pressure that was felt by principals to have a positive AYP
status between AYP Schools (Mean=3.36, SD=.809) and Non-AYP Schools
(Mean=2.60, SD=1.06) t (44) =2.13, p=.05. Also, a significant difference
was observed with regard to the administrative time spent addressing AYP
concerns between AYP schools (Mean=2.82, SD=.60) and Non AYP schools
(Mean=2.29, SD=.79) t (44) =2.05, p=.05. No other significant differences
were observed for the specific determinants of principal job satisfaction.
Table 7 presents the results.
41

Table 7
Independent Two Sample T Test of Factors Impacting AYP
Dependent
Variable
Statu
s
N Mean Std
Deviation
T
Score
df Sig
AYP impact on
school culture
0
1
11
35
3.09
2.71
.701
.987
1.172
44 .248
AYP impact on
way principal
works
0
1
11
35
3.55
2.89
.522
1.132
1.861 44 .069
Pressure to
have positive
AYP Status
0
1
11
35
3.36
2.60
.809
1.063
2.186 44 .034*
Fairness of AYP
across grade
levels
0
1
11
35
2.00
1.71
.894
.893
.924 44 .360
Amount of
Administrative
time spent on
AYP
0
1
11
35
2.82
2.29
.603
.789
2.053 44 .046*
Success of
government
mandates with
respect to
Learning
Disabled
students
0
1
11
35
2.55
2.17
1.036
.857
1.201 44 .236
(0 status indicates that school has met AYP for 2 years, 1 status indicates that
the school has not met AYP for 2 years)
* = The mean difference is significant at 0.05 level or greater
Given the information from the correlation tests and the independent
two sample test, we also decided to multiple regression analysis to determine
the strength of the relationship among the dependent variable of overall AYP
satisfaction and the independent variables of years that a principal was a
teacher before entering the principalship and the status of the school. The
results confirmed the significant negative relationship between AYP
satisfaction and the demographic variables of the number of years a principal
42

spent as a teacher and the AYP status of the school. The results are reported
in Table 8 and 9.
Table 8
Model R R
Square
Adj.
R
Square
Std
Error
Of
Estimate
1 .450 .202 .165 3.846
Table 9
Independent
Variable
Beta t Sig
Constant
Teacher Year
Status
-.331
-.339
7.40
-2.42
-2.48
.000
.020
.017
Dependent Variable Overall AYP Satisfaction
Discussion
In this study we attempted to determine what impact an AYP
designation may have on principals’ job satisfaction overall and the
individual components that constitute principals’ job satisfaction. In addition
we tried to determine if any correlation existed between the demographic
variables and principal job satisfaction. While some of what we found may
serve to confirm commonly held hypotheses and operant hunches, other
findings have serious implications for the principalship in the era of
educational reform.
Overall Job Satisfaction
It may seem relatively unsurprising that principals from Non-AYP
schools report significantly more dissatisfaction than principals from AYP
schools, but the result is nonetheless informative. According to job
satisfaction theory, job performance is impacted by the motivator-hygiene
model (Herzberg, 1959). The AYP designation on these schools appears to
place an extrinsic hygiene factor where no such factor existed prior to
NCLB. In this case the designation resulted in the decreased job satisfaction
43

of the principals at these schools. Perhaps more importantly these Non-AYP
schools, the ones that the federal government argues need the most reform,
and presumably the strongest leadership are then less attractive to principals
or by extension principal candidates because of the AYP designation. Thus,
ironically, the AYP status assigned to a school may create a disincentive for
qualified educational leaders to take on the daunting tasks of education
reform.
Specific Determinants of Satisfaction
Data from this study helps to isolate some of the most significant
areas about which principals in Non-AYP schools report dissatisfaction with
AYP. Table 7 indicates that principals in Non-AYP Schools report
dissatisfaction with the way an AYP designation adds to their administrative
workload and to the pressure they feel to lead schools to better AYP
designations. As Styron and Nyman (2007), and Valli and Buese (2008)
demonstrate, the performance pressure and work constraints on teachers
caused by NCLB has had a negative impact on student achievement. The
current study demonstrates that principals as well feel similar pressure and
work constraints as a result of AYP designation. While this study did not
determine if student achievement was impacted, research from Hallinger
(2005) has shown that principals have a significant impact on student
achievement.
However, it must be underscored that a comparison of AYP and Non
AYP schools may under represent the importance of other factors of job
satisfaction. The correlation of a negative AYP status with an urban setting
may mean that factors related of job satisfaction such as increased
paperwork, an overloaded schedule, lack of autonomy and political pressure
from government agencies which are important factors that influence
principal job satisfaction (Hill, 1994, Militello, 2006, Rayfield, 2004) may be
higher in Non-AYP districts. Certainly the correlation between an urban
setting and a Non-AYP designation implies that some contextual mediating
variables may be more prevalent in these schools because the nature of the
school itself tends to a more centralized bureaucratic system than its non
urban counterparts. Although this study did not examine that question,
further affirms the need to disaggregate some of the data presented in this
paper.
44

Correlation Analysis
The significant correlations between variables are reported in Table
4. Urban principals are more likely to find themselves in a Non-AYP school
and are therefore more likely to be frustrated with AYP’s restrictive nature.
This indicates that the urban principalship is an especially unattractive job in
terms of job satisfaction. These urban schools, often the ones most in need
of reform, are also places that are the least attractive to principals or principal
candidates. Nonetheless, and important question arises from another
correlation reported in Table 4: Why is there a significant correlation
between a Non AYP designation and the likelihood that a principal would
recommend to a colleague that they pursue the principalship.
One hypothesis is that Non-AYP principals may be discounting Non-
AYP status as simply a given and be more concerned with the mediating
variables mentioned above. Therefore, although AYP status impacts their
personal job satisfaction, they may feel a professional obligation to
recommend a qualified colleague to pursue the principalship if the colleague
expressed some interest in administration. More research should be
conducted in an effort to confirm this finding and to determine whether more
details about the nature of this result might be uncovered.
Another correlation in this study demonstrates that the future
supply of principals may be imperiled as teachers assess how their
former teaching colleagues view the principalship in the age of NCLB.
Table 5, demonstrates how the length of years a principal was a
teacher is correlated with job satisfaction. The data with regard to
length of teaching service and the principalship indicates that the
longer a principal had been a teacher, the more likely they are to
question their impact on students as a principal and their career choice
to become a principal. Furthermore the regression analysis presented
in Table 8 demonstrates that there is a strong and significant negative
correlation between the number of years a principal was a teacher and
their overall satisfaction with AYP. In addition, these long term
teachers are also more likely to have lower overall rates of job
satisfaction as principals. Since most principals come from the
45

teaching ranks (Militello, 2006), and principals often report that they
get into the principal position in order to have a greater impact on
students (Pounder & Merrill, 2001), this correlation raises critical
issues concerning recruitment of new and qualified principals in the
era of AYP.
Conclusion
While much has been written about the impact of the No Child Left
Behind Act on teacher morale, there is another aspect of this law’s impact
that remains unexamined. The results of this study will have significance in
guiding political leaders as they move to address the issues raised with
regard to education reform. In addition, the current study should provide
insight into the perceptions of middle school principals with respect to AYP.
The intent of the AYP designation was to provide an incentive for
those schools in need of reform to adopt transformative programs of change.
However, the very designation has a detrimental impact to principal’s job
satisfaction. Since job satisfaction has been linked to job performance, these
educational leaders face an additional obstacle in administrative efforts to
promote academic achievement of their students when their schools are
assigned an AYP designation. Principals have long been recruited from the
ranks of teachers, but this study demonstrates that principals with the most
experience as teachers are likely to communicate informally to their former
colleagues that AYP status is largely complicating the principalship and
reducing the job satisfaction of that role. Future research should be devoted
to determine the depth and strength of the AYP designation’s impact on
principal’s job satisfaction and student achievement.
Recommendations for Future Research
The principals in this study are all from Massachusetts and as such
this study may only be generalized to middle school principals in states
similar to Massachusetts due in culture, social norms and political
persuasion. As such this study can be generalized to all Massachusetts
middle school principals. Further studies will need to be conducted in
particular regions of the country to determine if the results of this study can
46

be replicated nationally or to determine if there is a significant difference
between principals in those regions and principals in Massachusetts.
Also, teachers that hold principal licensure but have not moved from
the classroom to the principals positions should be identified and studied
with regard to the perceptions they have with regard to AYP’s impact on
expected satisfaction. Such a study would help to demonstrate if AYP status
indeed has discernible hygiene effects on principal candidates.
It would also be beneficial to determine if differences among
principals with regard to the level of schooling exist. The current study
found a consistently strong dissatisfaction by middle school principals with
the fairness of AYP designations across grade levels. It would be
informative to determine if high school and elementary principals feel the
same way as those in this study. It would also be beneficial to conduct
qualitative research to determine why middle level principals report such
dissatisfaction.
47

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49

AUTHORS
Gerard Foley is currently a History teacher in the Mansfield Public Schools
in Mansfield MA. Foley has a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from
Westfield State College in Westfield, MA, an M.A.T. in History from
Bridgewater State University and a C.A.G.S. in Educational Leadership from
Bridgewater State University. His research interests include how incentives
and disincentives impact education at the school level.
Stephen J. Nelson is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at
Bridgewater State University and a Senior Scholar in the Leadership
Alliance at Brown University. Nelson has taught at Brown University, the
University of Rhode Island, and Rhode Island College and is the author of
three books about the college presidency: Leaders in the Crossroads:
Success and Failure in the College Presidency (2009), Leaders in the
Labyrinth: College Presidents and the Battleground of Creeds and
Convictions (2007), Leaders in the Crucible: The Moral Voice of College
Presidents (2000), as well as numerous scholarly articles. Prior to his career
as a professor, he was a college student affairs administrator at Wellesley,
Dartmouth and Bard Colleges where he was the Dean of Students.
50

Dr. W.A. Kritsonis, Editor, NATIONAL FORUM JOURNALS

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