Season 3, Episode 6: Who are America’s teachers?

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Hey, Diane, we're coming into the home stretch of the fall, and it does feel like it. And I, for one, am really excited about the vaccines being approved for children's ages 5 to 11. How are you doing?

Well, I am really looking forward to a bit of time to rest and connect with family over the next six weeks. Michael, I'm still super excited for the vaccines for younger children. It makes things feel a lot more doable this year with almost everyone eligible for those vaccines. And so I'm feeling hopeful, which is exactly why we've continued to do this podcast. Michael, as folks who listen know, we never thought we'd be here in season three of this podcast, let alone in the third year of schooling that's impacted by the pandemic. But here we are, and we feel that despite all of the challenges, challenges, and there are many, maybe some incredible opportunities to transform schooling are going to present themselves.

Yeah. And this year we've been taking, obviously, a new frame to our podcast, one of curiosity, trying to answer the big questions of the who, what, where, when, why and how of schooling. And today we get to tackle the who, as in who are the teachers in our schools and why that matters. And, Diane, this is a topic that I have been looking forward to tackling with you for some time, because way back when we were in person in August at the GSV Summit, and that feels like ages ago, frankly. Indeed, you had told me that you had never seen such challenges hiring and particularly retaining teachers as you had coming into the school year. And we both commented, like, I don't see this story in the media at all. And you were saying you didn't either, but it was a big deal and it wasn't just your school. And now it's a huge storyline on national papers and newscasts across the country. And, you know, we hear about the shortages constantly, how central staff in New York City, for example, are filling in on the schools, people are driving buses, the challenges of finding substitute teachers. And it feels like a really big deal. So I think it will be illuminating to help people understand more on this topic of who are our teachers.

I agree with you, Michael. It's such a significant topic, and it's helpful to review some of the evidence because this moment is being called the Great Resignation or the Big quit. As we know, this is the. This is the coverage we're getting. But I must say that, you know, back in August, while I was feeling it, it was really visceral for me. It was a little bit hard for me to step back because I was so in it. We're still really in it, but I. I think today we'll be able to make a little bit more sense from our experience and what, what I'm seeing and align that with what's happening nationally.

Yeah, and I'll just note that this phenomenon isn't just an education day in like we're seeing this in lots of sectors right now. People quitting, not ready to come back to the had, wanting more, thinking about their passions for any number of reasons, and people are really puzzling over this. So I think with that puzzlement in place, my first question, I guess is, is this really happening as people described? And is it different from things that have happened before? Let's start with the Is it really happening?

Great. Well, let's start from my experience and work our way out. I hope this doesn't end up being too much like therapy, but no, I think it might be instructive. So here's what I' and how it is truly different than anything I have ever experienced previously. I think the story starts actually with last year. Michael. So our schools located in California and Washington state were primarily virtual last school year. Unlike in other places in the country, this wasn't really controversial in our communities. And perhaps some of the reason for that was that the state and local health officials were mandating the closures for all. And quite frankly, our schools transitioned rather successfully to virtual learning. Share this because I think it will become an important bit of context in just a moment. So we began returning to school buildings last March, but it's important to note that that was a phased in return with both students and teachers volunteering to return. No one was required. And I share all of that because when we wrapped up in June, we had a very high retention rate of both school leaders and teachers. We had 100% of our school principals, or we call them executive directors, planning to return and just about 90% of our teach planning to return, which is, you know, great. So we all knew that we would open the school year in person, which begins in mid August for us. And then something crazy happened to those numbers. Starting in July, teachers started resigning. At first it was like one or two, but as we got closer to their return date and then our sort of preschool professional development days, we had just about a resignation per day. This is unheard of for us. Michael. For the first time in our organization's history, we began the school year not fully staffed because with these late resignations we also encountered the reality that there was no one to hire. And you Never want to be hiring late in the summer like that. But this was, there was literally no applicants in our pipelines. We have an incredible group of school leaders who are not just principals, but the deans as well. And among this group, only one leader didn't return. And I will say, Michael, if not for this group of folks, I'm not sure where our schools would be. Many of them began the year full time teaching and running the school, which is significantly more challenging given the added Covid work streams and quite frankly a much larger group of students than usual who require significantly more support to productively engage in school. And, and I'm sad to report that as the fall has unfolded, we've continued to have teachers resign. So the problem continues to persist. The most interesting thing to me is why they are resigning and what they are going to do next. And there's some connection here to some of those national trends you have just cited a few minutes ago. And while in general I think it's unwise to generalize, there are definitely a few themes that are surfacing. Specifically, some people are just making huge life moves. You know, the pandemic has provoked people to quit their jobs and move somewhere far away, often without new jobs or even clarity on what they're going to do. Many of our teachers are leaving to work for companies or organizations where they can continue to do education related work, but with significantly more flexibility and less responsibility than they have as teachers.

Wow. So that, I mean that sounds seismic, but I just want to double click because you know, this sounds very different for your school, but I'm curious maybe, you know, there's an argument your school is just finally following into the national trends that we've always seen. Because look, we know the often cited stat that nearly half of new teachers quit the profession after five years. And then I actually was looking into this before the show and I found some evidence that there's confidence conflicting reports on this. There was a federal study from just a few years ago that suggested the number was closer to 17%. And that's a huge discrepancy by the way. So I'll, I'll just like grant you that it's kind of hard to get a grasp over what this problem is with discrepancies like that. But we also know that there have historically been lots of teacher shortages in the country, but that those shortages haven't been universal. And what I mean by that is that they disproportionately affect certain places and grades in subjects. So first, certain grade levels harder to staff than others. Specifically high schools and middle schools are harder than elementary schools. Second, and then closely related are grade level shortages. And that's. Sorry, particular subject areas within those grade levels. Right. So like the STEM areas, for example, chronically understaffed science, math, but also foreign languages and special education teachers, which I suspect really played out perniciously and led to a lot of the challenges we saw with remote learning for special needs students during the pandemic. And then the third area is geographic. So some geographic regions of the US Face ongoing teacher shortages, whereas others actually often report a surplus. And specifically the South, Southwest and West have historically struggled with teacher shortages relative to the Midwest and Northeast. And it's also the case that urban and rural schools have been harder to staff than have suburban schools historically. So I'm just curious, like, are you following into perhaps a trend that's always been there, or is this meaningfully different?

You know, Michael, there, there is no doubt that we operate in more competitive markets and in middle and high school, which are harder to staff, as you've just said. And we most certainly struggle the most to hire special education teachers, math, science and Spanish teachers, in that order. And so we certainly follow along all of those lines that you, you just named. But we also partner with schools across the country. And so while there are a few places in the country where this issue isn't playing out, we have many partners where this year the entire site leadership team turned over during the summer and, you know, half of the teachers are new or they are still trying to fill holes in staffing. You know, this is something we've never seen. I have never seen this in 25 years of teach and leading and often in some of the most challenging places to staff. You know, the question that I keep asking is where are the teachers going? You know, we spoke to this a little bit, but speaking personally, I was never able to quit my job and not work. And for most educators I know the same is true. And so I've been trying to figure out what jobs are teachers taking. Are they simply abandoning the profession altogether? And you know, my hypothesis after talking to a lot of people is that we have an interesting, I believe, unintended outcome of COVID relief money. Yeah, essentially schools across the country have seen this huge influx of funding like I've never seen before. And well, let me be clear, the cost of implementing Covid mitigation is high. There are still significant funds remaining and it's designated. They are designated for student supports and have position been positioned to be much less traditional than Sort of like hire more teachers and much more open. So create tutoring and after school programs and summer programs and partnering with community organizations. And, you know, couple that with the reality that many technology products came into intensive use during school closures and have sort of opened people up to things they might have never considered before. I think that that leads us to a lot of existing companies and organizations expanding to meet this new demand and many new ones coming into the market. And in every case, they are seeking to hire educators. You know, this looks like everything from teachers becoming POD leaders and working with, you know, small groups or families or becoming full time tutors or working for staffing agencies that are providing teachers to schools that can't hire them. That one's super interesting. We might come back to that. You know, people might ask, why would a teacher leave the benefits and security of a school job to become a contractor sometimes in the very school that they left? And, you know, it turns out that in many cases people are making more money because the agencies can charge a premium right now. And, you know, who knows if that will last. But I think even more importantly, these teachers right now are valuing flexibility and control. The, the intensity of being in schools full time right now is, quite frankly, just too much for some folks. And there is something to being a contractor with less responsibility, more options to leave and move on if it gets to be too much. And I've also seen teachers leave to join edtech companies where they feel like they can still be doing education but in a totally different environment.

Super helpful context, I will say. Personally, I can understand wanting to work in the gig economy. You know, I like that arrangement quite a lot. And I also will say it's interesting, like, I hadn't thought about it until hearing you say it, but, but the flexibility that teachers desire. I wonder if an unintended benefit in the long run might be that it gives schools the flexibility that they need. But, you know, it's interesting just because we haven't had a mega study before in the US like Korea did with those millionaire teachers that we read about a few years ago.

Right.

But the dynamics, I guess now have fundamentally changes. And given that, I guess maybe it would be best, Diane, to take a step back and as we like to do, ask a larger question. And I'll just start with one, which is, who are America's teachers today? And I will push you to generalize because I know, you know, we both don't like the averages. But it's just helpful, I think, to paint a picture of what the teaching force looks like to get a deeper idea into who is a teacher, how do you become one, and what does that mean for our system?

Okay, well, let's start with the headline, Michael. And it is a headline that I will admit. We're surprised me a few years ago when I first learned it as we were developing our own teacher residency program. And that headline is, a huge majority of America's teachers are white women. So essentially me, this is America's teaching force. In the 2016 school year, America had about 3.8 million teachers and 80% of them were white. Michael. And it's important to note that over half of the nation's students were not white at that time. So, you know, as we've said before, big data sets like this lag significantly. But there is no reason to believe that the teaching force has gotten much less white in the last five years. Although there is good reason to believe that the student population, students of color, is that that population is growing in our school. Important is that during the same year, 23% of America's teachers identified as male. So again, predominantly female across the country. As to your earlier point on how many teachers leave the profession within the first five years, as you said, it's an oft repeated stat that it is 50%. I appreciate that you're beginning to question that, and I'm interested to stay tuned and dig into that study you reference more. You know, here are a few more stats that I think might add a bit more intrigue to this. So in 2017, 2018, only 9% of America's teachers had less than three years of experience. So that's a little bit. That's interesting and. Yeah, yeah, exactly. 28 had three to nine years of experience, 40% had 10 to 20, and 23 had 20 plus. And so, you know, that suggests to me that the teaching force in America is predominantly white women who stay in the profession for, you know, quite a bit of time.

So all data points suggesting the current moment is more and more unusual. How do these people get to be teachers in the first place? How do people like you end up there? And what does it take to be a teacher?

Well, technically speaking, to be a teacher, you, you have to be credentialed in your state. And so that that is universal. And you guess every state has different requirements. Not surprising here. And they, they aren't really nice about accepting credentials from other states. You know, I believe one of the unintended consequences of this is that teachers tend to be people who stay put for most of their lives and careers. So that sort of adds another layer to, to who is teaching. By definition, a credential requires at least a bachelor's degree, so that. That is universal. It used to be more common that you could major in teaching as an undergrad, but that's less and less true. You know, most states now require additional coursework beyond the bachelor's to become a credentialed teacher. And they often also require some practice teaching in a school. That would be a good thing, and the passage of some exams in order to get the credential. Nationwide, about 90% of teachers are fully credentialed. The other 10% are in some sort of specialty permit that allows them to teach while they're pursuing their full credential. But, you know, the majority are fully credentialed, which I think goes along with those. Those numbers of, you know, how many of people have been in the profession for longer periods of time. America's teachers are, as a result, Michael, a pretty highly educated group. You know, 58% of them hold a master's degree or higher. And, and that number has been on the rise in recent years. That said, entrance requirements into teacher credentialing programs are quite modest. In general, the vast majority of programs that credentialed teachers aren't really vetting for dispositions, mindsets, or even meaningful skills that will enable a person to be a strong teacher. And, you know, there are obviously some exceptions, but in some sort of boutique programs and elite programs. But that is the general state of affairs.

It's just interesting as an aside there, because we know that more education, those master degrees and so forth don't correlate to better teachers in many cases. And I think you just nailed it. Because on the front end, they're not necessarily thinking about the dispositions, mindsets, meaningful skills, nor are they always training those things and recognizing the vast number of jobs that a teacher has to do in today's system. And I'll just briefly say, and I know you were part of the film Waiting for Superman, but my issue with it often is that that implies that one teacher can be that Superman or Supergirl Superwoman figure. But we ask teachers to be tutors, mentors, facilitators, curators of learning experiences, designers, evaluators, counselors, content experts. That's not even all of it, and that's an exhausting list. And so I guess with all that said, I'm curious. There's a lot of talk right now about alternative licensure and alternative forms of teacher education. So, like, how Does a Teach for America fit in or at the Christensen Institute? Thomas Arnett wrote about this a few years ago. Profiling match. Charter schools in Massachusetts work to get a new graduate school of education so presado accredited. There's High Tech High in California, there's the Relay Graduate School of Education. And of course you all at Summit have done this process as well. So is there hope for new ways to get into the teaching profession?

Well, Michael, back to our what you're referencing, which is Summit's teacher residency program. You know, here's the short story of it. About nine, eight or nine years ago, we saw a real need for a completely different approach to preparing teachers to be successful in our diverse, high performing classrooms. And you know, like the other handful that you named and many more who've thought about this, we wanted to recruit many more male teachers and people of color so that our students could really reap the proven benefits of having role models who they identify with and connect with. And so the process of becoming a state approved credentialing program is daunting. I can tell you that from firsthand experience. There is a reason only a handful have done it. And while I could spend hours telling you deeply disturbing stories of absolute, you know, a bureaucratic and biased process that is truly designed to hold the status quo, I won't, I won't do that. Instead, I'm just going to share a few trends. And this is the people who are controlling the process for approving new programs are the very same people who are running the competitive programs for Those students.

Accreditation 101 in our country.

Yeah, we were used to seeing this in the charter world, but it showed up again in the teacher credentialing world. So that's a big theme and trend. And then there are really only disincentives for innovation because everything you have to do to prove you should exist as a teacher credentialing program requires you to basically replicate what is out there. There are no incentives for innovation. In fact, oftentimes you get knocked or they can't understand it, or it's not seen as proven. And so those, those are two big themes that keep coming up over and over and over again in that very lengthy process. Here's the sad part of it all, Michael. When you finally get down to it, getting a teaching credential is complex, time consuming and ultimately expensive, especially relative to ultimate earning potential. And as a result, we have a very low number of low income folks or people from low income backgrounds who can even afford to get started in this profession. And that is truly unfortunate for our students.

It's a really important point you just made there. It all makes sense in a kind of insane way, I'm going to be honest. But let's, let's keep pushing, I guess this thread forward. So that's how people get into the teaching field. What about the development of teachers in their career arc?

Yeah, well, this might be a whole big conversation, but to begin, there are so many misaligned incentives. So most schools place a cap on transferable years. So once you have seven to 10 years of experience, you will take a significant financial hit if you move from one place to another. And so people stay put. And since, since pay increases are capped and the same for everyone, the incentives are, quite frankly to just like reduce and simplify your workload and the time you spend versus incentivizing our more experienced people to keep taking on bigger challenges and the toughest problems. And so this is why you see experienced teachers taking on advanced courses where the perception is that the students are easier to teach or teaching the same course over and over so they don't have to replan or organizing their schedules so they have a first or last prep to sort of shorten their school day. And there's all of these very logical individual moves that a teacher makes to sort of maximize their earnings and, you know, by minimizing, if you will, the, you know, time and energy they're putting into their work. And I don't want, I don't want to say that with any disrespect because you and I both know tons of teachers who pour their lifeblood into their work. But the systems really incentivizes teachers to do that and teachers have to push against that if they don't. And so in my view, the most challenging part of this is that everyone from the first day on the job teacher to the 30 year vet is basically expected to do the same job. And as you just sort of rattled off, it is a complex, complicated, multidimensional job. We wonder why so many beginning teachers don't make it. And, and this is a challenge that truly plagues me. You pair that with the reality that an extraordinarily small amount of time is built into a teacher's job, which is actually your original question here, I think, but it's so buried here because to actually build the knowledge and skills and improve, we should be spending extraordinary amounts of time, given the complexity of this job. And we do see that in other cultures a little bit more. And you, you've certainly studied A number of them. But most teachers have a handful of days. I am truly Talking about maybe 3, 6 on the high end is pretty normal to engage in improving their practice. And, you know, what we know is this is absolutely not how to improve practice. It has to be ongoing. It has to be, you know, involve direct, quality feedback. There's all of these things you do not these sort of event type days where some speaker might be coming in or some workshop is happening. And so I'm sorry, that was not very inspiring.

No, no, not at all. I mean, I think it's telling on a number of fronts. One, that people would think listening to me would be professional development and it would somehow improve your practice, because in my experience, I'm offered that, that speaker. But the, you know, the. But the second thing I think is, you know, all the individual behavior you described, it reminds me of what my mentor, Clay Christensen always said, which is people don't do stupid things because they're stupid, or they don't try to cheat things because they're cheats. Like, they do things because they're in stupid systems, and they do the logical things around that. And that's fundamentally, I think, what we have here, and it's totally at odds with the research around employee motivation as well. And, and this has been known since 1968. The most downloaded article, I think, ever at Harvard Business Review was written by this guy, Frederick Herzberg, and he wrote this research basically showing that job satisfaction, the opposite of that, is not dissatisfaction, it's the absence of being satisfied in your job. And dissatisfaction, the opposite of that is the lack of dissatisfaction. And he basically realized that there are hygiene factors which can take away dissatisfaction with a job. So better pay, better work hours, better working relationships, things like that, Those are hygiene factors. They make you not dissatisfied with your job, but they don't make you, like, truly excited and motivated to come in. Those sorts of things are the work itself, opportunities for advancement, responsibility, the ability to have recognition, things like that, that give you more and more control as part of the workday and as part of doing a better job. And you realize all of those things, all of those motivators are like systematically stripped out and maybe designed to be the opposite of the teaching profession. Diane?

I mean, yes, you've described the system and the profession and sort of these inherent, big systemic challenges that we're up against as we tried to, you know, transform it or change it. I don't know. We're moving a little bit away from hope. Michael.

Well, let's. So let's give us some hope. Right? Like wave your magic wand, because there's some depressing things here. But are there any glimmers like where might we see change around how teachers are prepared and who is able to be a teacher that'll create both a more robust teaching force in the years ahead for our students, but also a more manageable and logical teaching profession itself?

Yeah, it's interesting because while it's super challenging and painful right now, I'm a little bit hopeful about this potential teacher disruption we are experiencing because. And what's so interesting is I think one of the things that happened when we went virtual is people just started to imagine things that they could have never imagined before. They started to visualize different roles and different ways of doing things and how we might use time and all of that. And while I don't think anything was ideal during that time, just the opening of our imagination and, you know, it's happening again in this fall, even though we're back in person in most places because of the shortages and whatnot, we're having to reimagine things and visualize things differently. And so I do wonder if enough teachers start moving into other adjacent roles and organizations, you know, might we start to have a conversation around redesigning the roles of the teacher with some influx of new ideas and visions and possibilities? And along with that, we have to redesign the role of the school to address some of these known and persistent issues that you just so clearly cited and that apparently we've all known since 1968, but have not been doing anything about it. I'm really curious about what's happening right now and. And what openings we might find in that space.

Yeah, those pressures in the system that you've cited, I think create some really interesting opportunities and a danger of having. Two quotes from my mentor, Clay Christensen. I'll do it anyway, because he used to always say that questions create space in the brain for solutions to fall into. And that's actually a principle from teaching and learning, as you know. Right. Start with that question and, you know, hopefully with these questions, these, that these pressures are creating, begging for, we will see some creative solutions that start to redefine what this teaching profession is and so forth. But hopefully this has served as a helpful primer for folks and before we say goodbye, as is our custom, I'm curious, what have you been learning or exploring outside of this topic of reinventing the teaching profession?

Well, I'm smiling at you because I'm going to go very, I think, off, off brand today Very pop culturally culture y. Super out of character for me since I don't really watch tv. But the squid games, Michael, I mean everybody was doing it. And my, my excuse to myself is my son is studying in Korea this semester, as you know, so it felt very necessary that I get, you know, a window. Let's hope that wasn't a window in her buddies experiencing. But I will say, Michael, I found it to be incredibly well done. And I think if you're watching closely, it's this really nuanced examination of the traditional definition of success, sort of wealth, status and power and a counter vision that's really rooted in a much older and more collectivist culture. I mean, it just really has me thinking. And it's quite a page turner if you. It's not even a page turner. It's a bit. See how what a nerd I am. But yeah, it's fascinating.

So I'm gonna have to potentially renew net. It's on Netflix, right? So I, I may, I may actually have to get my subscription back up and running so I can watch it because I feel like obligated in my household to know what it is. But mine is Ted Lasso. So I'll see your pop culture and I'll, I'll, I'll raise it. But like I think everyone else in America, I don't know about you, but everyone else in America, welcome to the party. Even you watched it, right? They'd already watched it, so, you know, but that never stopped me from being the last one on a pop trend. So. But it's been a great escape. And I did find myself waking up in the morning talking to my girls with a twang in my voice and some corny lines to pep them up for each morning with school. And so with that, I will say to all of our listeners, keep your own heads up as we move through the home stretch of the fall and we'll see you next time on Cloud class disrupted.