The Teaching Commission
April 2005
The latest Teaching Commission poll takes the temperature of both the general public and teachers with regard to its primary concerns: boosting and changing teacher compensation, raising standards and increasing accountability, and improving professional development and training. Overall, the poll finds broad public support for such initiatives, including a compensation system that provides "larger increases for teachers who improve student achievement, raise teaching standards, and increase accountability for teachers." However, only 16 percent of adults identify teacher quality as a main problem facing public schools, and in their own schools, 64 percent rate the quality of teachers as "excellent or good," a figure at odds with well-known data on out-of-field teaching and related matters. The survey captures the great challenge facing education reformers: many folks agree that those schools need improvement while insisting that my school is doing just fine. To read the complete findings, click here.