US teachers, overwork and perceptions of work-time reductions: Evidence from Massachusetts

Abstract This study is based on four focus group interviews with public school teachers in Massachusetts about reducing work hours as a means of improving their working conditions. Our analysis documents a common experience of overwork, expressed in the focus groups and measured by time-use diaries. Teachers reported long work hours and a significant ‘mental load’—both of which affect teachers’ quality of life, physical and mental health, relationships with their families and desire to keep teaching. While participants were union members and therefore experienced with collective bargaining, most approached the issue of overwork as an individual problem that must be solved by setting and maintaining personal boundaries. Focus group participants differed in their assessment of a hypothetical policy proposal for a work-time reduction without a loss of pay for teachers or instructional time for students. While generally supportive of the goal, participants questioned whether contractual reductions would correspond to actual reductions in hours worked. Teachers expressed both eagerness to include work-time reductions in future contracts, as well as scepticism that their districts had the fiscal space or political will to achieve this goal. Discussions revealed that teachers’ professional identities as hard-working and caring ‘perfectionists’ who are responsible for their students’ learning, inhibited their policy imaginations with regard to using collective bargaining to win them additional leisure time.