Research Alert
Profile of the U.S. Teacher
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the United States currently has approximately 3.2 million K–12 public school teachers. Here's what a recent report, Profile of Teachers in the U.S. 2011, had to say about them.
World Spin
A Pound of Cure?
In England, as part of a sweeping reform of the teacher training system, students who graduate from British universities with first-class honors will be awarded £20,000 (approximately $32,000) to teach subjects deemed vital to students' futures, such as math, physics, chemistry, biology, and foreign languages. Students awarded second-class honors will be awarded smaller scholarships. The British Ministry of Education will refuse to fund teacher training for students with third-class degrees, the lowest honors classification in most British universities.
Relevant Reads
Burned In: Fueling the Fire to Teach, edited by Audrey A. Friedman and Luke Reynolds (Teachers College Press, 2011)
Coeditor Luke Reynolds starts off this collection of reflections by describing how he nearly quit teaching at the end of his first year. "I felt as though my fears and inadequacies were far too crushing for me ever to become the kind of teacher I dreamed of being," he recalls. In his subsequent successful teaching career, he has encountered many new teachers who are on the verge of quitting; the purpose of this book is to inspire such teachers to persist and grow. Contributors to the collection include Parker Palmer, Sonia Nieto, Kirsten Olsen, Andrew Hargreaves, Sam Intrator, and Peter Elbow.
"Consider the outcry in our nation if half of all baseball players quit the sport after their first season. Or if half of all elected officials quit their offices after the first year on the job. Or if half of all lawyers quit their jobs after their first year working out of law school. In many other professions we would start to wonder why. And yet, with teaching, we have come to accept that this is the way things are." (p. 3)
Numbers of Note
90 The percentage of public school teachers who began teaching in 2007–08 and had a mentor who were still teaching by the 2009–10 school year.
77 The percentage of public school teachers who began teaching in 2007–08 and had no mentor who were still teaching by the 2009–10 school year.
Source: U. S. Department of Education. (2011). Beginning teacher attrition and mobility: Results from the first through third waves of the 2007–08 beginning teacher longitudinal study. Washington, DC: Author.
Only Online
Network with Veterans
If you're looking for a place where new and veteran teachers can explore the teaching profession together, visit the Center for Teaching Quality. You can participate in virtual exchanges with fellow teachers, guided by educators with expertise in various areas.
On the transformED section of the site, 16 teacher-written blogs explore such topics as understanding common core state standards and surviving grading madness. Members of a virtual community of teacher leaders share their pedagogical expertise and thoughts on education policy in the Teacher Leaders Network Forum. The forum's resource library links to thousands of member-generated articles, blog posts, and videos. Search by categories ranging from Achievement Gap to Technology in the Classroom and see a clickable list of publications and teacher reflections on that topic.
For instance, a search on "classroom management" brings up an article on how to revisit classroom rules midway through the year and a diary entry in which a member reflects candidly on her latest missteps in classroom management.
Page Turner
"The only profession where it's more difficult [than teaching] to salvage your mistakes is tightrope walking."
—Gary Rubinstein, p. 50
