Teachers’ Quality of Worklife Survey & Unfair Terminations
On the July 30th show of Education Town Hall, we had guests Lori, Denisha Jones, and Gus Morales on the show. The guests discussed the recent Atlantic article published about the Quality of Worklife Survey, released in part with the BadAss Teachers Association. Also, Gus Morales recalls his personal struggle with the teacher evaluations in his district.
Quality of Worklife
First on the show, Denisha Jones and Lori talk about the disappointing Atlantic article. Lori was quick to state that the article “missed the mark.” The article focused almost exclusively on only one of the many workplace qualities. The article gives the reader the idea that teachers are complaining about not being able to use the bathrooms regularly at work, when that is not at all what the survey was about.
“We felt it was actually rather demeaning,” said Lori. Although the bathroom issue is a serious one, not being able to relieve oneself can lead to health problems, the facts associated were not the most striking from the results of the survey.
The more striking statistics are ones including mental health. Forty-five percent of the 30,000 teachers who completed surveys reported having mental health problems due to the stress involved with teaching, while 86% of teachers said they were treated for stress related illnesses. The survey covers a lot of workplace stressors, not just bathroom breaks and Lori believes that the article missed the main point, “One of the goals of our survey is to change the working conditions for teachers, because a teacher’s work environment is a student’s learning environment.” Another important fact found in the survey was that there was a lot of discrimination and even bullying taking place in teachers’ workplace environments. Teachers are being discriminated by race, gender, sexual orientation, and even age.
When asked why the public is not more aware of problems like this, Denisha Jones responded, “They don’t want the public to know these things…if people knew what it’s really like in some of their schools, they would be in the streets-they would be upset.”
The Atlantic article, according to Lori, was “disparaging.” The author of this article shows irresponsible journalism by not Teachers’ Quality of Worklife Survey & Unfair Terminations | Education Town Hall Forum: Archives, Announcements, & Extended Discussion on Weekly Broadcasts...: