School districts today face increasing calls for accountability during a
time when budgets are stretched and students' needs have become
increasingly complex. The teacher's responsibility is to educate younger
people, but now more than ever, teachers face demands on a variety of
fronts. In addition to teaching academic content, schools are
responsible for students' performance on state-wide tests. They are also
asked to play an increasingly larger role in children's well-being,
including their nutritional needs and social and emotional welfare.
Teachers have shown themselves to be more than capable of taking up such
challenges, but what price is paid for the increasing demands we are
placing on our schools? Understanding Teacher Stress in an Age of
Accountability is about the nature of teachers stress and the resources
they can employ to cope with it. Accountability is a two-way street and
the authors in this volume suggest remedies for reducing teacher stress
and in all likelihood increasing student learning-greater administrative
support, more and better instructional materials, specialized resources
targeted at demanding children, parental support, and professional
recognition. Readers will discover that lack of funding, low pay,
concerns about academic performance and student misbehavior, and
increased public and governmental scrutiny are not exclusive to the
United States. In this volume, the third in a series on Research on
Stress and Coping in Education, authors from Australia, Turkey,
Malaysia, and the Netherlands sound the same alarms, post the same
warnings, and draw similarly disturbing conclusions.
