Reply to NY times op ed on the teacher crisis

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The simple answer is pay. They can work less, for more $, in the private sector. Why WOULD they want to teach? Loving kids, or loving your work etc (despite the problems) is not always enough. They have families to support too. Raise pay. Significantly.

That said (to address one of the comments): k-12 teaching will NEVER be a career that commonly offers options to work remotely. Ever ever ever.  That is an incredibly unreasonable expectation. If you want to work from home, K-12 teaching is not the career for you. [/quote]

I agree pay and benefits are the core issue. FWIW, we are in DCPS and it seems like even in our Title 1 school, they retain teachers really well. I know there is a pay bump for Title 1 teachers and I think it makes a difference. Some of the veteran teachers at our school make as much as 120k. That's a very good salary in the public sector -- there are engineers who make less, and even high level administrators who oversee large departments only make a bit more. So paying teachers well definitely helps with retention (and I'm betting also helps with job satisfaction -- it's easier to deal with annoying work stuff if you feel you are being well compensated).

But I think the other key issue is administration. The number one complaint I hear from DCPS teachers is frustration with either Central Office or school administration, and the biggest issue is the feeling that the people setting policy, deciding on curriculum, determining schedules, etc., are checked out or don't really care about what is happening at the classroom level. So I think one concrete thing school districts could do to improve teacher retention is to hire more people with actual classroom experience into administration and support roles, and to do a better job of listening to teachers and responding to their feedback. Teachers should have a say in curriculum changes, and their input should be essential to other aspects of policy-making.[/quote]

Anyone notice some parallels here? Teachers don't like admin imposing one-size-fits all policies and dictating so many of their actions for them, just like many students don't like teachers imposing one-size-fits all policies and dictating so many of their actions for them. It's a problem all the way down. People of all ages like to have as much agency and responsibility as they can handle.[/quote]

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