How goes the working conditions of teachers, so goes the education our students receive.
Students and teachers are working in a paper-and-pencil penitentiary.
The Adelaide Gaol | A-Wing Prison Cell - HDR Originally uploaded by Artie | Photography
“ ‘We’re here for the kids.’ ‘We do what’s best for kids.’ Often have these words been proclaimed from atop school district offices. However, has anyone thought that by doing what’s best for teachers you are doing what’s best for kids?” Brian Crosby, Smart Kids, Bad Schools
“Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions.” North Carolina governor Michael F. Easley
Death to All Sacred Cows authors David Bernstein, Beau Frasier, and Bill Schwab point out that focusing exclusively on the wonderfulness of your customers can alienate and demoralize your employees. Without a happy and motivated workforce, your business will wither and die.”
And if your business is educating students, then spending all your time focusing on the needs of the students while ignoring the needs of the teachers is a recipe for poor morale, poor teaching, and eventually poor results.
Ken Futernick, writing in the Los Angeles Times said, “We have a high-school dropout problem in large part because we have a teacher dropout program.”
Teachers dropping out of the teaching profession is a serious problem. According to a 2007 California State University study, nearly one-quarter of new California teacher leave the profession in four years or less. Think of that, one out of every four teachers is leaving education after just a few years, even after all the training, education, and time they spend to get into the profession.
Teachers are expected to prepare students for success in the 21st Century, while working and teaching in 19th Century conditions. Compare how the conditions are for teachers, students, and prisoners.
Wouldn’t students and parents both benefit from a system treated teachers like professionals and put their long-term needs first ahead of the changing needs of students and parents. Students would get the education they deserve because they would be receiving instruction from teachers who are getting the treatment they deserve.
Fine dinning in New York City is not a place where you would think the customer comes second. But that is exactly the philosophy of restaurant owner and operator Danny Meyer. Death to All Sacred Cows puts it, “Danny Meyer certainly believes in treating the customer well….He just happens to think that the customer second and that his employees are the most important part of his business.”
Meyer once said in the in an article in Time Magazine,
“If you are devoted to your staff and can promise them much more than a
paycheck, something to believe in, you will get the best service for
your customers.”
Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia clothing company, titled his book, Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, If I were to write a book it might be titled Let My People Go To The Bathroom.
Give your teachers the best and they will give your students the best.
Give your students the best and they will change the world.
Education Innovation
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