Skip to main content

Mobile Navigation

  • National
    • Policy
      • High Expectations
      • Quality Choices
      • Personalized Pathways
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Gadfly Newsletter
      • Gadfly Podcast
      • Flypaper Blog
      • Events
    • Covid-19
    • Scholars Program
  • Ohio
    • Policy
      • Priorities
      • Media & Testimony
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Ohio Education Gadfly Biweekly
      • Ohio Gadfly Daily
  • Charter Authorizing
    • Application
    • Sponsored Schools
    • Resources
    • Our Work in Dayton
  • About
    • Mission
    • Board
    • Staff
    • Career
Home
Home
Advancing Educational Excellence

Main Navigation

  • National
  • Ohio
  • Charter Authorizing
  • About

Ohio Menu

  • Policy
    • Priorities
    • Media & Testimony
  • Research
  • Commentary
    • Ohio Education Gadfly Biweekly
    • Ohio Gadfly Daily
    • Events

Great Expectations: Teachers’ Views on Elevating the Teacher Profession

Asa Spencer
11.7.2012

Baby-boomer retirements and mid-career (or early career!) departures have helped render America’s teaching force the greenest it has ever been. Does that mean it’s more receptive than ever to reforms? So you will read in this survey report from Teach Plus (interesting, even if the survey methods aren’t terribly rigorous). Of the “new majority” (teachers with ten or fewer years of experience), 71 percent favored using student gains as a factor in teacher evaluations. (Only 41 percent of veterans felt the same way.) Newbies were also more likely than veterans (42 versus 15 percent) to favor a new compensation system with higher tenure standards and higher starting and top salaries. Still, these young teachers are not ardent reformers: Neither subset of educators was willing to take larger class sizes for higher salaries, for example. Nor did either think that longer school days are necessary to increase achievement. How to leverage these findings to change teacher policy? The report offers one smart recommendation (building off the mission of Teach Plus itself): Encourage “new majority” teachers to seek leadership roles in their unions and districts.

SOURCE: Mark Teoh and Celine Coggins, Great Expectations: Teachers’ Views on Elevating the Teacher Profession (Boston, MA: Teach Plus, October 2012).

Asa Spencer is a research intern at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. He graduated from Wheaton College in 2012 with a sociology degree, concentration in social justice and inequality. During the past three summers, he worked as a program assistant for the Great Books Summer Program at Amherst College and Stanford University. The camp involved leading discussions with high school students who decided to spend their summers…

View Full Bio

Sign Up to Receive Fordham Updates

We'll send you quality research, commentary, analysis, and news on the education issues you care about.
Thank you for signing up!
Please check your email to confirm the subscription.
Fordham Logo

© 2020 The Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Privacy Policy
Usage Agreement

National

1016 16th St NW, 8th Floor 
Washington, DC 20036

202.223.5452

[email protected]

  • <
Ohio

P.O. Box 82291
Columbus, OH 43202

614.223.1580

[email protected]

Sponsorship

130 West Second Street, Suite 410
Dayton, Ohio 45402

937.227.3368

[email protected]