Teachers in America
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Teachers in America
Ed Trends Minisode: 2024 Educator Confidence Report Insights on Teacher Concerns and Trends in Education
Educators are giving the teaching profession a low grade. Why is that?
On today's bite-sized episode, we will be zeroing in on educator's top concerns, their views of the profession, and what we can do to make it better. We'll dive into HMH's Educator Confidence Report, which surveys educators about the issues that impact them daily and asks them how we can improve the profession going forward.
Teachers in America profiles K–12 teachers across the country. Hear firsthand from the people who are shaping young lives in the classroom every day. If you or someone you know would be a good candidate for Teachers in America, please email us at shaped@hmhco.com.
Hi, I'm Kaylee Rhodes, and this season on Teachers in America, we're introducing EdTrends Minisodes. These bite-sized episodes will keep you informed of the latest issues impacting education. Today, I'm going to break down HMH's latest survey of educators, zeroing in on educators' top concerns, their views of the profession and what we can do to make it better. Let's get into it. This year marks the 10th anniversary of HMH's Educator Confidence Report, conducted in partnership with the research firm MarketCast. Every year for the past 10 years, we've been checking in with educators about the issues that impact them daily and asking them how we can improve the profession going forward. So let's hit some highlights. Let's start with the Educator Confidence Index, which measures educators' views at the profession on a scale of 0 to 100. Sound familiar, teachers. In the 10 years that HMH has been conducting this survey, sentiment toward the profession has remained fairly low, with small increases and dips along the way. This year, educators' outlook is on a slight upswing from a historic low of 40 in 2022 on a scale of 0 to 100, to 42 in 2023 and 43.6 this year in 2024. These numbers, while slowly increasing, do show that there's room to grow. So why do educators give this profession such a low grade.
Speaker 1:Our survey spotlights their top concerns. Number one low teacher salaries. Teachers, we understand this one Followed closely by number two educators' mental health so important, just as important as number three, students' mental health. Number four lack of education funding. And finally, number five students' social and emotional needs.
Speaker 1:Low salaries have long been a concern in the teaching profession, even before we introduced it as a topic in the survey in 2018. And we, as educators, understand that one. If you're outside the field, you've likely seen news articles about how teachers in some states have to work a second job or have a side hustle to make ends meet. Educators have also said that burnout is a critical issue, so it's no surprise that concern over their own mental health also tops the list. If our educators aren't happy and aren't healthy, they're not going to get the results in the classroom that they need and they may not stay. Educators have told us that they're always on during the day and often spend nights and weekends preparing lessons instead of resting up and recuperating, and a balanced workload would really help here. According to 82% of respondents, that's a significant percentage.
Speaker 1:Two of these issues are mostly out of a principal's control. Low teacher salaries and lack of funding are, unfortunately not something our administrators can directly address, but student and teacher mental health and social and emotional learning, or SEL, are things that a principal can impact. Teachers need to be served by a great principal to help them do the job effectively. As a teacher myself, I've seen this firsthand. Guys, we know that principal that leans into our health and well-being can make or break it for us.
Speaker 1:There's support for principals at the Center for Model Schools established by HMH to address the challenges in education today. The center focuses on five key ingredients. These are essential elements to making sure that every child is in the model school they deserve. Decades of research from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research or UChicago Consortium identified these five essential factors of schools that improve student outcomes. So, number one you've got to have an effective leader. You have to have collaboration among your staff. It needs to feel like a team. Your families need to be really involved in the school, because the school is a bigger community than just inside the walls. You need ambitious instruction, high standards for all kids and, finally, you need a supportive environment. When leaders focus on these elements, they get better results and teachers tend to stay at these schools and do great work the ingredients for a successful school culture elements. They get better results and teachers tend to stay at these schools and do great work. The ingredients for a successful school culture are really ingredients for any successful culture in any community. But, as with most things that are utopian, this is a tall order. So how do we accomplish this? Well, the great news is is that we've got resources to get you started. Look for the links to a great read on our blog for educators, with practical steps for leaders on building supportive environments and a webinar on maximizing your team's collective wisdom to create a framework for rapid change. So let's get back into the report.
Speaker 1:This year's findings show that educators are less likely to leave the profession than they were 10 years ago, which is great, but many still say they haven't ruled it out. In fact, only 33%, or a third of respondents, say that they have no interest in leaving. Teacher retention has long been an issue for the profession, and principals of schools with high teacher turnover often have no other choice than to hire inexperienced teachers to fill vacancies. And hiring and training new teachers is expensive and too much turnover is never good for school culture. How can that culture take root if everything around. It is in constant flux.
Speaker 1:Educators responding to our survey have ideas about what might attract teachers to the profession and make them want to stay. And teachers. These answers won't surprise us. First, 82% said improved salary and benefits. We need to be having those standards of living and those security measures met for us to be enjoying our profession. 58% said adequate funding for classroom supplies and resources. That's a big one. We want to make sure that we do our jobs and we do it well. And 53% said support for well-being and physical health, which anyone who's not in the teaching profession can also agree that their own workplace would be improved by those things. So we just touched on this, but it bears repeating. Leaders can increase retention by creating better school culture. Culture keeps educators out of school or it drives them away. So keep building towards those five components of a model school that we talked about earlier Effective leaders, collaboration among staff, involved families, ambitious instruction and a supportive environment.
Speaker 1:Teachers we can agree that in the best schools that we've had the pleasure of teaching in, the ingredients that make up that experience are leadership that makes sure all staff, not just teachers, are involved in decision making and owning the vision. They feel like a true team. It feels like everyone has an equal voice. It's all about dismantling that hierarchy and making sure that we all feel like we own the plan. They didn't just tell teachers to meet a standard without providing needed support. We would never tell students to meet a standard without providing needed support. We would never tell students to meet a standard without providing them support, and so we should never do that to our teachers.
Speaker 1:And finally, these schools worked on building trust and had trust built in to their day. Leaders did what they said they were going to do in a transparent way, and if something went wrong, they addressed it. This is the kind of culture we all want to work in. Looking ahead to future episodes we'll talk about. While educators' concerns about the profession point to system-wide challenges, their responses to survey questions about AI in the classroom may be cause for cautious optimism. Teachers agree that emerging technologies like generative AI can be a potential tool for battling burnout by giving them time, time back, time back to do what they do best connect with students in a meaningful way. We'll dig into educators' views of AI in our future Ed Trends mini-sode. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 2:If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on the Teachers in America podcast, please email us at shaped at hmhcocom America podcast. Please email us at shaped at hmhcocom. That's S-H-A-P-E-D. At H-M-H-C-Ocom. Be the first to hear new episodes of Teachers in America by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed today's show, please rate, review and share it with your network. You can find the transcript of this episode on our Shaped blog by visiting hmhcocom. Forward slash shaped. That's hmhcocom forward slash s-h-a-p-e-d. The link is in the show notes. The Teachers in America podcast is a production of HMH. Thank you to the production team of Christine Condon, tim Lee, jennifer Corujo, mio Fry, thomas Velasquez and Matt Howell. Thanks again for listening.