By now many of you may have scene the report that came out this week from Public Agenda and Ed Week titled Teaching for a Living: How Teachers See the Profession Today.
It’s an absolutely gripping report and one that every teacher, principal, and policy maker should read. If we were smart, it would serve as the cornerstone to any policy debate we have about school reform. Sadly, that seems like wishful thinking.
In the report emerges a portrait of three clusters of educators: disheartened, contented, and idealists. The graphic below shows the primary traits of each group:
Looking through some of the general conclusions about these three groups, it’s striking how much the overall EXPERIENCE of being an educator is at the center of the report. Administrative leadership and student behavior, the two elements that truly form the heart of any single day outpace other qualities of job satisfaction.
Those of you who know my work, also know that what really jumps off the page for me is the teachers who report concerns about workplace conditions. Are we listening? Are policy makers listening?
Improving the context of teaching will improve the outcomes of teaching. It’s that simple. Improving the experience of being an educator is the simplest, cheapest, and perhaps most effective means of improving education. Are we listening?!
In this report, these are three groups of people in a pie chart. In the classrooms, these are real humans experiencing teaching in wildly different ways. The real litmus test of all of this is the students. I have sons. I want them to have teachers who fall far outside the parameters of “disheartened.” But that’s not up to my sons. That’s up to the principal, colleagues, and systems in which the teachers work.
I encourage you to read the report and speak up! The critical importance of this report (and hosts of others that report similar findings) is too stunning.
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