ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on teachers' employment status and workload because both of them are key measures of teachers' working conditions which influence teachers' job satisfaction and career plans. In addition, few comparative studies are available of the national patterns of teachers' employment status and workload and their associations with national student achievement. Research has identified the critical role of teacher commitment and capacity for successful policy implementation. Research on the relationship between contract teacher hiring and student performance is limited and inconclusive. The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) dataset is suitable to examine the work contexts surrounding teachers across the countries or regions because this is the international dataset that includes data from a nationally representative group of lower secondary teachers. In the United States, teachers' working conditions are likely to vary considerably across states and even districts given the different levels of autonomy the states and the districts have in making decisions about school and teacher policies.
