A survey of teachers, parents and students by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company finds that the tough economic times have taken their toll on public schools. The insurance company has been conducted the annual poll since 1984.
– teacher job satisfaction is at its lowest point in two decades. Just 44 percent of teachers say they are “very satisfied” with their job. More say they want to leave their profession. Job satisfaction has dropped 15 points over the last two years.
– nearly three-quarters of teachers and parents say teacher are treated as professionals in their communities.
– budget cuts have hit three-quarters of all schools. A majority of teachers say class sizes are up. More students are showing up in need of health and social services
– while parent involvment remains a challenge, more students say they are talking to their parents about what happens in school. The more parents are involved, the more likely a teacher is to have higher job satisfaction.
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8 Responses to Teacher Survey: Low Morale
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It stands to reason; especially for the urban teachers. If my parnets were more involved it makes my job easier because the parents are an extension of school and get the kids to do their homework or projects. INstead the only time parents get involved is when their child fails and then the teacher is blamed. I spend at least 10 extra hours a week with students after school and I can’t get the parnets to come and pick up their kids. I only get half my parents to even pick up the report cards!
Plus we’ve got Governors telling us we’re not worth the paper our paychecks are written on, and they do back room deals (transparency)to overthrough school boards illegally. Then they try the back room deal scenerio again to overturn or circumvent the Supreme Court decision that told them they were wrong!
Then you add the Charter School advocates who spout all the good things about Charter Schools; but nobody pays any attention to the surveys and studys that say only 17% of Charter schools do better than public schools. That’s almost 80% that do the same as or worse than public schools! Hello, can anyone read? ONtop of that Charter schools only cater to 1% of the school population! They get more money, don’t have special needs students, or ELL students or SED students or students with “ankle bracelets” to educate! Yeah, we are a little down in the dumps!
Studies of parochial schools in he 1980s noted parental involvement as the reason for their performance as compared to similarly located urban public schools. Other factors included tuition (parents have skin in the game) and a culture of respect: self-respect (uniforms, higher expectations) respect of authority (belief in a higher power and in a higher morality) respect for others (a civic ethos that emphasizes charities).
Sound like some Charter Schools are trying to emulate that culture as a secular ideal?
There’s no question being able to hire and fire motivated staff and expel unmotivated and disruptive students helps the culture of Respect. Reform Schools sound so archaic until you get into the alternatives–prison, drop outs, and massive social disruption of mainstream classes. The resource allocation pyramid is upside down is many ways with the best and brightest and most productive getting the least support and the ungifted and challenged getting an ever-increasing share of the resources.
No cost-containment on social experimentation? Any surprises there? We provide the least to the most talented? Can unlimited compassion create more problems than it solves?
The cradle-to-grave commitment teachers are expected to make in public schools isn’t realistic as a one-size-fits-all model. Schools should encourage 401Ks and staff movement between schools and districts.
At worse schools are like some government agencies. How can anyone expect the employees to be current if they’ve never worked anywhere else? By going to seminars and listening to the same stale education industry pundits hired to grant CEUs for re-certification requirements?
One of the things private business brings to the table is employee mobility where ideas cross-pollinate between organizations fairly quickly as staff is mobile. It’s a far more fertile environment for growth and innovation than the stagnant public sector. I’d use the term inbred but you get the drift. How can you expect an organization to be state-of-the-art when the staff never works with state-of-the-art personnel?
The Invisible Students: CT’s School to Prison pipeline.
http://tinyurl.com/7ztytge
Also known as the students without advocates: alternate education and CT’s ineffective attempts to manage behavior and transition to modern-day reform schools.
Then there’s the Stamford CT model: put them all in their own school district for test score purposes so the Mayor looks … well …. better on paper.
It’s why I think Adamowski and Malloy understood each other at the word go.
Looks like teachers were happiest when GWB was President.
Richard…Unmotivated teachers are fired or do resign…I know there is a large culture out there that do not believe it, but it happens. As for expelling disruptive and unmotivated students, where do you suppose they go? They are kids. Also, each district has to pay for their education until they are 18. Alternative placements are usually reserved for kids who sell drugs, bring weapons, or assault students and teachers. Home tutoring is another option, but that is expensive. Schools ultimately decide to keep unmotivated and disruptive kids in school. Also, the state has limited out of school suspensions that students can have. They are also cutting down on arrests. Ultimately in the end, the schools are responsible until kids are 18. Whats unfortunate is that many people forget that they are kids, some of whom have gone through unspeakable abuse or neglect, others who depend on the school 2 feed them 2 meals a day and now sometimes 3, others that may not go home at night, others who do not make it school every day. When teachers want parents involved, its not just making sure they get there homework done, its is making sure the kids get to school on time if at all, or making sure the kids eat or get sleep at night. Whats also makes things tough is when parents stand up for their kids when they blantantly break a school rule in front of them and blame or swear at the teacher. It undermines everything we teach the kids. But, what would you do if you can’t expel all of the disruptive and unmotivated students?
Frank I’m a non-practicing teacher. I’ve worked the urban grind. Telling me that unmotivated teachers get fired is a simple untruth. The cynical and jaded and burnt out are everywhere. Often in the worst schools as they exist as a shelter for the reprobate teacher.
I’ve been back and forth with the detention and mainstreaming thing: I’m a believer in alternate programs and modern day outreach officers to get parents involved. I also favor work programs for some of these kids: they simply don’t want to be in school. period. It would be cheaper to get them working than it is to pay the costs of what amounts to alternate incarceration. Modern day reform/training schools? In some cases Yes.
Boarding schools and more private placements? Yes. We do a better job solicitng homes for exchange students than kids from problem homes.
The problem is that these kids then become voiceless and the programs languish when they get pulled out of the school districts.
There are many working alternate education systems and not all work for the same clientele: the young single mother returning is different than the verbally abusive kid. etc.
Having said all that that’s where I see Charter Schools and Vouchers as doing the same thing.
I see Milwaukee as a beacon in one respect: they’ve proven they can deliver mainstream education to 20% of the Milwaukee kids at 45% of the Milwaukee districts per student expenditure.
If Hartford could turn 50% of the students over to charter, private and parochial schools at 45% of the per capita expenditure that would free up some money for attacking the other half of the students who dominate the discussion.
$6,442 — Maximum amount of state aid available to a student eligible for a voucher in Milwaukee.
$14,183 — Cost per student in the Milwaukee Public Schools
20,996 — Number of Milwaukee students from 4-year-old kindergarten through 12th grade enrolled in 102 private schools using public funding. If the voucher program were a school district, it would be Wisconsin’s fifth-largest (it is the size of Hartford’s student body).
There’s so much more that could be done in Hartford by proper management. It’s sad we’ve settled for second rate management for so long and appear doomed to repeat that error for at least another administration.
The graph rises steadily then plummets after 2008. Does that indicate 18% of teachers just equate job satisfaction with their paycheck?
As far as high school teachers go:
Anyone competent in their academic area (math, science, especially) would do better to take a job in industry (actuarial work, laboratory medicine) than be subject to having their “competency” measured according to how some SPED kid with an 80 IQ performs on tests, or otherwise being evaluated by a principal or V.P. with an education degree.
Are you good in your field? Then go for a graduate degree IN YOUR FIELD, not Education, and look to teach at a college.