A new survey from Educators For Excellence (E4E), “Voices from the Classroom 2024,” finds that teacher morale is at an all-time low and —contrary to parents’ inflated ideas about their children’s academic growth— educators overwhelmingly believe that “students continue to struggle academically and emotionally post-pandemic.” Currently 70% of teachers estimate that students are far behind where they were before Covid.

Perhaps most concerningly, only 26% of teachers, the researchers write, “strongly agree that the students in their school are receiving the education necessary to prepare them for an eventual college or career pathway.” The only exceptions to this consensus are young teachers and public charter school teachers. Currently 23% of teachers believe their schools are effectively providing students with an appropriate education.

The report also finds:

• Only 16% of teachers would recommend their profession to friends and family and few plan to stay long-term. The only exception is charter school teachers, who are “more likely to say they personally plan to stay; 28% say they would recommend the profession to others. When teachers were asked how schools could improve retention, they cited higher salaries, and better benefits.
• “Teachers of color are more optimistic about their students’ academic and social-emotional outcomes and seemingly more satisfied in their roles than white teachers, despite consistent attacks on the very identity of teachers and students of color in legislatures and boardrooms across the country.” Also, teachers of color are more likely than white teachers to believe their students are on track to college and/or a good career. The morale of teachers of color is higher than for white teachers: They are 1.5 times more likely to say the teaching profession is diverse, dynamic, rewarding, and sustainable.
• Less than half of teachers feel they have adequate time to collaborate with each other; 63% say they need more time to work together to improve student learning. Most are in favor of team-teaching, where two teachers are in charge of a classroom. When asked if veteran teachers should have more students in their class than new teachers, most agreed. Also, 96% of teachers said they’d be happy to have a larger class size in exchange for a salary increase of $10,000.

• Teachers believe schools could attract a high-quality, diverse teacher workforce if there were higher salaries for those in hard-to-staff areas like STEM and special education or for those were willing to work in struggling schools. (In New Jersey, salaries are based on seniority and extra college credits, not on subject or student needs.)

• Teachers’ satisfaction with their unions is “trending downward.” In 2020 65% of teachers believed their local bargaining units were doing an “excellent or good job.” Now it’s down to 52%. Only 45% of teachers think their unions are doing a satisfactory job with “reimagining the profession” and working on ways to “effectively evaluate teachers.” Forty-four percent think their unions provide adequate support and mentoring for new teachers and 38% are “satisfied with efforts to expand career opportunities for teachers.”

• While the majority of teachers report that their schools have mandated science of reading instruction, “just a quarter of teachers who work in districts that have adopted these new materials say their instructional practices have shifted ‘very much’ as a result of these changes.” Only 31% of elementary school teachers say early reading instruction has changed significantly. And only 30% say they’ve been taught how to use assessment data effectively.

• Their is racial disparity in how teachers view technology, specifically the use of artificial intelligence. More than half of teachers of color “overwhelmingly support the technology’s use in the classroom” and believe it has the potential to “transform teaching and learning in a positive way.” Only 14% of teachers nationally agree with that statement.

“As educators, we have long been aware that the teaching profession and, more broadly, K-12 public education are in crisis,” the National Teacher Leader Council says in prefatory remarks. “The system is well-versed in crisis; it has been chronically failing students, particularly those most in need, and overworking and underpaying its teachers for more than a century. And yet, the crisis of this decade feels especially acute: the pandemic’s seismic disruption to everyday teaching and learning erased two decades of slow but steady progress in student achievement, devastated student mental health and daily school attendance, and exacerbated long-standing opportunity gaps.”

The Council continues, “the rapid, unexpected upheaval it created made the system’s inherent stagnancy and inequity even more difficult to deny. And it reminded us — as members of other professions experienced swift and largely positive transformations in their work lives — that our jobs are not only incredibly challenging, but also staunchly inflexible.”