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Sunday, March 18, 2012

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Lastest Gates Foundation Research Asked the Teachers

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Lastest Gates Foundation Research Asked the Teachers:


Lastest Gates Foundation Research Asked the Teachers

A new Gates Foundation report (with Scholastic) has just come out called Primary Sources: 2012 - America's Teachers on the Teaching Profession. They surveyed about 10,000 teachers via e-mail and in person about schools, their classrooms, student and teacher performance and assessment, tenure, family involvement, job satisfaction and digital content.  It was not revealed to the teachers who was sponsoring the survey. 

One chart that jumped out at me is on page 12 called "Impact that various effects would have on improving academic achievement".

Will you look at that - Family involvement and support was picked to be "very strong" or "strong" by 98% of the teachers.  High expectations was second at 96%.  Principals was the third choice at 91%.  And coming in fourth (Earth to Bill) - lower class sizes at 90%. Interestingly, lower class size was more important to teachers of older students. 

What came in low on the scale for teachers?  A longer school year, monetary awards for teachers and a longer