New Study: Teacher Working Conditions Worsened After COVID — and Still Are

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Teacher working conditions not only worsened when the pandemic began, but have continued to decline, a new study finds. 

The University of Missouri research discovered ongoing issues including increased classroom disruptions and declining trust between teachers and parents, principal and colleagues. The researchers analyzed data from the 5Essentials Survey which collected responses about school wellness from roughly 123,000 to 130,000 teachers in more than 3,300 Illinois schools annually from 2019 to 2023.  

“I would have thought the 2020-21 school year was the big disrupted year,” said Cory Koedel, a University of Missouri professor who worked on the study. “It’s quite reasonable to think that was the worst. But this data is telling us that’s clearly not true. And our findings give no indication that working conditions will rebound naturally now that the pandemic is behind us.”

The 5Essentials survey identifies five main indicators of school success: effective leaders, collaborative teachers, involved families, supportive environments and ambitious instruction. Each year, teachers and students are asked to rate their experiences.

The most dramatic change after the pandemic began was in classroom disruptions. A 2023 EdWeek survey found that 70% of educators said students in their schools misbehaved more than before the pandemic. In 2024, the percentage increased to 72%.

Koedel’s research found the quality of student discussions and professional development also declined from 2019 to 2023. The trust teachers felt toward parents, principals and other educators didn’t worsen from 2019 to 2021 but deteriorated from 2021 to 2023. Teacher safety significantly improved in 2021, when most schools shifted to online learning, only to drop again in 2022 and 2023, once students returned to classrooms. 

A few working conditions initially declined but improved from 2021 to 2023, including collaborative practices and student engagement in learning

The study also analyzed Illinois survey data by school demographics. Teachers from schools in wealthier communities had better working conditions, but experienced the same decline as educators in lower-income schools.

Schools where instruction was delivered online during the 2020-21 school year also had larger declines in working conditions compared with schools where learning was in-person.

Koedel said that while the study focuses on Illinois, educators nationwide have experienced similar working conditions.

“There’s really no reason to think Illinois is some weird place that’s so different from every other [state]” Koedel said. “In my opinion, we should expect Illinois to be like other places, because a lot of what’s happening in schools there is happening everywhere.”

For example, other national studies have highlighted the link between teacher job satisfaction and educators’ well-being and retention. 

A 2022 study from the RAND Corp. found that teachers who had administrator support and felt they belonged in their schools were less likely to report burnout and job-related stress. Those who had strong positive relationships with their colleagues and felt their students were engaged in learning were also much less likely to report poor well-being.

“There’s a deeper question of, like, ‘What exactly is it that’s driving this?’ ” Koedel said of the University of Missouri results. “I believe this is telling us we have made some sort of bad decisions about how we’re running schools, but this doesn’t tell us what decisions we made that were bad, right? So I’m trying to understand that better.”

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