challenges

Teachers Love Their Lives, but Struggle in the Workplace

A new Gallup poll finds

Teachers have high personal wellbeing, as evidenced by their high life evaluations and emotional wellbeing scores, and this may prove beneficial to their students and the broader community. It is unclear whether the relatively higher scores of teachers on several measures of wellbeing are because working in that profession enhances one's wellbeing, or if people who have higher wellbeing in general seek out teaching professions. Prior research, however, has demonstrated the significant role that the workplace plays in wellbeing outcomes. Still, teacher's low workplace wellbeing, relative to other professional occupations, indicates school and community leaders have important issues to address in the school workplace in order for teachers and students to reach their full potential. It is absolutely critical to raise teachers' workplace engagement, because their engagement is the No. 1 predictor and driver of student engagement, which Gallup research shows impacts student wellbeing and academic success. The positive news is that these workplace struggles can be addressed. Teachers and school leaders need to work together to improve the work environment.

Despite these workplace challenges, teachers love their work and the life it produces

Nationally televised "Teacher Town Hall"

There will be a nationally televised "Teacher Town Hall" broadcast live on MSNBC from noon until 2:00 p.m., September 25, 2011.

Brian Williams (NBC News) will moderate the discussion with help from colleagues who will take questions from the audience in Rockefeller Plaza, NYC, and moderate and report an online conversation with teachers across the country

The program is billed as “for and about teachers” with a focus on the challenges and opportunities facing America's teachers, as well as examples of exemplary teaching from schools across the country.

Teachers may join the conversation online and in a live chat during the Teacher Town Hall, by logging in at: www.educationnation.com

Gates: "Poverty is an excuse"

Billionaire corporate education reformer Bill Gates has become increasingly bizarre in his public proclamations. We reported a short while ago about his slip that sounded an awful lot like an admission he would like to privatize public education.Now he seems to think poverty is no obstacle, all we have to do is hand poor students over to a charter school

Microsoft founder Bill Gates told the National Urban League on Thursday that a child's success should not depend on the race or income of parents and that poverty cannot be an excuse for a poor education.
[...]
Gates, who now runs the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, cited his foundation's work with charter schools as an example.

At least he has enough self awareness to know he doesn't know what he is talking about

"Let me acknowledge that I don't understand in a personal way the challenges that poverty creates for families, and schools and teachers," the billionaire said at the civil rights group's annual convention.

You can further forgive Gates, because it's not like there is very much research showing the direct ties between poverty and educational achievement.

All just excuses, right?

Top 3 Today

Your top 3 news stories today

  1. Big City Mayors don't like S.B.5
    But while many mayors at the start supported the governor's drive to revise binding arbitration rules, they now say Kasich went too far and that the wholesale changes in the collective bargaining law are unacceptable. All but one of the mayors of the state's five largest cities are now publicly blasting SB5 as an attack on middle class families.
  2. Bigger deficits for states without collective bargaining
    There is no evidence to suggest that collective bargaining is the cause of overall budget challenges," former Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper told an Ohio House committee in March. "Many states without collective bargaining, such as Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina, have far larger budget deficits than many that do, including Ohio.
  3. NEXT SEASON ON SURVIVOR
    How long would Governors Kasich, Walker and Christie survive in the classroom?