Lexia’s survey also explored educators’ thoughts on how best to persuade teachers to remain in the profession. A huge majority of educators (83 percent) believed the key to teacher retention was higher pay. The second most popular recommendation (71 percent) was smaller class sizes. Only 55 percent of educators feel that schools have been compensating teachers fairly.
Despite their concerns, most educators (66 percent) are optimistic about the upcoming school year. They also shared reflections on how well their schools have supported them and their students since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority feel that their school has done well with digital tools to support personalized learning. Over three-quarters of educators (77 percent) cited their schools’ investment in classroom technology (e.g., education programs and mobile devices) as a positive action while 65 percent expressed appreciation for technology that kept learning going outside of the classroom.
“It’s gratifying that so many teachers have been able to facilitate their work,” said Gaehde. “We need to ensure that digital learning tools are made available to educators who do not yet have access. And we also need to ensure that that technology helps to provide the real-time, personalized, and in-depth feedback that they’ve said their students need. Teachers have an enormous responsibility even in the best of times, so they deserve full-fledged support as they strive to resolve this crisis in education.”
Other survey findings include:
- Almost all educators (81 percent) worry that their students will fall behind academically if remote learning is ever reinstated; 76 percent worry that students’ social-emotional health would suffer
- Because of the lessons learned throughout the pandemic, very few educators (19 percent) think that they need retraining on the technology required to deliver remote instruction
- More than half of educators (58 percent) believe their school has done a good job of providing students with social-emotional support
- Almost half of educators (44 percent) think less frequent testing would help students achieve at- or above-grade-level performance
- Over one-third of educators (37 percent) have concerns about how the curriculum they use addresses unfinished learning or grade-level-appropriate topics
- Nearly one-third of educators call for more training and professional development opportunities as a way to retain teachers.
This press release originally appeared online.
Laura Ascione is the Editorial Director at eSchool Media. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland’s prestigious Philip Merrill College of Journalism.