Gallup Poll To Teachers: They Like You! They Really Like You!
Lily Eskelsen, vice president of the National Education Foundation, was at a back-to-school event near Cleveland, Ohio on Tuesday when a special education teacher approached with tears in her eyes and asked: “Why are they being so mean to us?”
The “they,” said Eskelsen, was a combination of unflattering news reports about struggling schools, a blitz of documentaries seen as unfairly blaming teachers for lackluster student achievement, and politicians who seem more interested in pursuing their own agendas than addressing challenges facing public education.
Eskelsen told me she did her best to reassure the Ohio teacher, although in hindsight she wishes she could have shared a particularly heartening piece of information: For a third consecutive year, 71 percent of Americans participating in a Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll on education issues said they had confidence in the abilities of
The “they,” said Eskelsen, was a combination of unflattering news reports about struggling schools, a blitz of documentaries seen as unfairly blaming teachers for lackluster student achievement, and politicians who seem more interested in pursuing their own agendas than addressing challenges facing public education.
Eskelsen told me she did her best to reassure the Ohio teacher, although in hindsight she wishes she could have shared a particularly heartening piece of information: For a third consecutive year, 71 percent of Americans participating in a Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll on education issues said they had confidence in the abilities of