Most Teachers Believe Public Views of Them Are Unfavorable
Most people want to feel valued for their life’s work, and teachers are no exception. But what the majority of teachers are feeling is anything but.
Findings from an EdWeek Research Center survey reveal that 68 percent of teachers perceive a negative public view of them.
As an elementary teacher in Pennsylvania acknowledged, “I feel very defeated and am tired of being hated by society.”
Or as a middle school teacher from North Dakota put it: “Teachers are overworked, underpaid, and disrespected. We deal with our most valuable part of our society, which is children. We are treated as if that does not matter.”
Feeling undervalued has the potential to affect performance, job satisfaction, and ultimately, the quality of education children receive, experts say.
The widespread perception coincides with multiple challenges in the education sector: Teachers report feeling more negatively than positively about their work; most surveyed said they wouldn’t want their own children to enter the profession; they find increased workloads and insufficient resources a strain; and some teachers have altered lessons to avoid controversy and potential complaints.
Matthew Kraft, a professor of education and economics at Brown University, suggests the gap between the public’s perception and teachers’ reality partly stems from the public’s limited perspective on teaching. “That gap in perception comes in some ways from the familiarity everyone has with teachers’ work from a student perspective,” he said. “We’ve all been in classrooms, we see teachers doing their work, but as students, it may appear on its surface like something many people would succeed in doing if they chose to.”
Kraft also noted a paradox in how people view education: “When people rate the quality of public schools broadly, they give schools middling grades. But when they rate their own individual school, they give much higher ratings.”
That suggests the negative perceptions might be more influenced by broader narratives than by personal experiences with local schools and teachers.
Kraft argues for a shift in perspective: “As a society, we’ve been too focused on trying to make sure that we can staff every classroom instead of asking, who do we want to be in front of students in every classroom?”
States Bring More Lawsuits Against Social Media, Targeting TikTok and Citing Kids’ Mental Health
The newest legal battle against social media platforms—this time TikTok—could have a trickle-down effect for schools where some of the alleged harms of social media often play out.
But first, the 13 states and the District of Columbia that have filed a series of lawsuits will have to prove their claims that TikTok is intentionally designed to be addictive to children. And those addictive features, the lawsuits say, are harming kids’ mental health.
The lawsuits against TikTok are another effort targeting social media algorithms, which prioritize the posts individual users see on their social feeds based on how likely people are to engage with the content. Forty-one states have sued Meta, and school districts across the country have filed other suits against the major social media companies.
“For young people in particular, their brains are still developing,” said Danny Weiss, the chief advocacy officer for Common Sense Media. “It’s very difficult if not impossible for them to resist the temptations with these powerful algorithms that are based on millions and millions of bits of information about the user to then drive that user to stay engaged … and drive them to places that kids themselves have not chosen to go that can be harmful.”
69ý’ deteriorating mental health hurts their ability to learn and requires districts to spend more money on mental health supports, according to a lawsuit filed by the Seattle school district, the first district to sue the major social media companies. Social media has indirectly led to school property being damaged, either as a result of kids acting out of mental health issues, as some district-led lawsuits claim, or trends on social media that challenge students to vandalize restrooms or steal school property.
TikTok says the claims against it are inaccurate and misleading and has taken several actions to protect teenagers as proof of its commitment to its youngest users’ health and safety. “We … have voluntarily launched safety features such as default screen-time limits, family pairing, and privacy by default for minors under 16,” said a company spokesperson.
A School Board Tried to Make Public Comments Civil. It Went Too Far, a Federal Panel Rules
Can school board rules to address civility restore order to meetings? A Florida district will have to return to the drawing board.
A federal appeals court struck down the public-comments policies of the Brevard County board, saying its rules barring abusive, obscene, or personally directed comments blocked protected speech or were applied inconsistently.
The decision addresses issues faced by school boards all over the country as parents and others have flooded meetings with angry comments over such topics as pandemic-related restrictions, gender policies, library books, or teaching about race. Many boards have similar policies to maintain decorum.
“For many parents, school board meetings are the front lines of the most meaningful part of local government—the education of their children,” a three-judge appellate panel said, adding that the right to speak at such meetings is not unlimited, “but neither is the government’s authority to restrict it.”
A chapter of Moms for Liberty challenged Brevard County’s public-comment policies. The group sued under the First Amendment, saying the policies were vague and led to the chilling of its members’ speech.
A federal district court found in favor of the district. But the appellate panel said the policies violated the First Amendment.
For instance, as defined by the board chairwoman, the rule against “abusive” speech “is constitutionally problematic because it enabled [the chair] to shut down speakers whenever she saw their message as offensive,” the court said. The chair silenced one speaker who had referred to “the evil LGBTQ agenda” and another who referred to the “liberal left,” the court said.
“If the only ideas that can be communicated are views that everyone already finds acceptable, why have the school board meetings in the first place?” said the majority opinion by Judge Britt C. Grant.
The second school board rule barred speakers from addressing their comments to board members other than the chair. The appeals court said that policy was applied haphazardly.
The third policy prohibited using obscenity at board meetings. The board used it to “bar protected speech, and it did so in a way that impeded the purpose of a school board meeting,” Grant said.
Ohio Funds Construction for Private 69ý
Ohio’s budget for capital projects has a beneficiary that might be surprising: private schools. The budget provided $5.6 million for construction and remodeling at 10 private schools—all very quietly, say critics of the action.
It’s believed to be the first time Ohio has funded building construction for private schools in recent memory, and Ohio could be the first state in the country to do so.
The capital budget, passed in June, pays for construction projects for state buildings, public schools and colleges, and numerous community projects. Money for the private schools wasn’t reported until September.
Proportionally, the spending for private schools is small, but legislative observers say that when the legislature began funding private school vouchers, that program started small—just available for students in the Cleveland district. Over time, lawmakers added more money, created new voucher programs, or expanded existing ones. Today, nearly $1 billion is spent on private school vouchers, and everyone qualifies for at least a partial scholarship.
State spending on private school construction projects could follow a similar trajectory, they warned.
“This is all part of the Christian Nationalist playbook for undermining our public education system: Divert public money to private religious schools while imposing their religious beliefs on public schoolchildren,” said Rachel Laser, the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which launched an investigation this month into the funding.
John Fortney, a spokesman for Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman—who represents a district where two private schools received funding—defended the spending. “This is laughable and a lie that the left is using to yet again vilify parents who send their students to a school of their choice,” he said.
Why Few Low-Income Kids Use Private School Vouchers
It’s not news that wealthier families are more likely to take advantage of private school vouchers than poorer families. But a deep dive into the voucher program in Arizona by ProPublica reveals the extent of the gap and many of the reasons behind it.
The analysis shows the poorer the ZIP code, the less often vouchers are being used. In one West Phoenix ZIP code where median household income is $46,700 a year, for example, only a single voucher is being used per 100 school-age children. In contrast, in a Paradise Valley ZIP code with a median household income of $173,000, an estimated 28 vouchers are being used per 100 school-age children.
The question is, if there’s interest in school vouchers among lowerincome families, why isn’t that translating into use, as conservative advocates have long promised would happen?
Working-class families say they’d like to send their kids to the schools the rich kids attend. But it’s just not feasible.
Several families said they simply didn’t know about the program or didn’t have the time, given their jobs, to investigate whether vouchers would be a better option for their kids than public school.
But others said they knew plenty. Still, they came to understand that the program was not designed for them. Logistical obstacles would make using vouchers practically impossible.
The high-quality private schools are not near their neighborhoods. Of the more than 200 private schools in the Phoenix metro area, only six are in U.S. Census tracts where families earn less than 50 percent of the county’s median income of $87,000.
So even if lower-income families were able to secure spots at a decent private school and could use vouchers to pay the tuition, they would still have to figure out how to get their children there.
Then there’s tuition. A typical voucher from Arizona’s program is worth $7,000 to $8,000 a year, while private schools in the Phoenix area often charge more than $10,000 annually.
Next add the cost of food, which public schools provide to students from lower-income families, and a supply of uniforms.
