“The teaching profession has a major image problem,” Third Way analysts Tamara Hiler and Lanae Erickson Hatalsky write in their analysis of the National Online Survey of College Students – Education Attitudes. “Unfortunately, this perception of mediocrity has negatively affected the national reputation of teaching, initiating a cycle of undesirable outcomes that can be felt throughout the profession.”
This poll of academically-successful college students displays that almost 60% have little to absolutely no interest in teaching as a profession. They perceive education as a profession associated with graduates who are socially conscious, patient, selfless and nice. It is not that these are unfavorable characteristics; they are not associated with more desirable professions where the characteristics smart, motivated, ambitious, rich, and driven are more prized. Most of the polled did not perceive a college major in education to be very difficult. They believe that education has lost prestige in public opinion. Lastly, 90% believe that the starting salary in their new profession is somewhat to very important and 89% believe that salary advancement in their profession is somewhat to very important. They believe that teacher salaries are below their professional expectations.
http://www.thirdway.org/publications/810
Public media has displayed the changing and diminishing public perception of teachers over the past decade in releases about teacher unions and collective bargaining, the cost of teacher benefit packages, the stagnant state of student achievement nationally, and the disappointing status of US children compared with their international peers.
Running parallel to a “major image problem” are three phenomena that are even more problematic than a public image. First, in the next several years a graduate of a teacher preparation program will be greeted by more than 3,000,000 vacant teaching positions and will compete against teacher candidates who on average comprise the bottom one-third of the nation’s annual college graduates. The talent pool of future teachers will not include the best and brightest of their generation.
http://www.thirdway.org/publications/811
Second, Children now and yet to be in school will face an array of significant challenges. This image by The Millennium Project represents fifteen of the most significant.
15 Global Challenges Facing Humanity
http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/challenges.html
And third, national and world leaders perceive that improving the quality of education for all children provides the best chance for meeting these challenges.
If quality solutions to regional, national and global problems rest on the improved education of all children, then the United States needs an increasing number of the best and brightest of each year’s new employment pool to be trained as teachers. Currently, the perceived public status of teachers and education as a profession pose barriers keeping many secondary and undergraduate students from planning a career in education.
A series of blogs in Causing Learning will focus on rebuilding a teaching profession capable of educating children to succeed in their future world.