For too many educators, the idea of a morally centered school may seem like a fantasy--or be so novel a concept that it is hard to grasp. In this article, the authors describe such schools, which truly serve students' best interests by following a set of shared professional values, and how educators and their unions can help create them. The four…

The COVID-19 infection drastically altered the 2019-2020 school year, shortening and preventing its completion. As a result, we do not know if the school will return as normal in the fall or not. This uncertainty causes stress for parents, students, and teachers. We need to recognize these stresses and develop a strategy to deal with them.

Drawing on the disability justice paradigm of care work (Piepzna-Samarasinha), this article moves to shift the labor of resilience from students to our course design, noting how models of student resilience are often tied to ableist expectations of performance and coherence. The authors share their ongoing experiments in creating…

This book chronicles the challenges, truths, and lessons of teaching and leading in a traditional high school today: the bureaucratic red tape, the fight for inclusivity, the mental health and safety concerns, and the urgent need for teacher support and wellness. From active shooter drills to digital distractions, from closing achievement gaps to…

In this report, the authors examined the relationship between social and emotional (SE) skills, school climate, educator variables, and educator burnout. Mosaic Educator, an assessment designed for teachers and school staff, was completed by a sample of educators in several regions of the country during the spring of 2022. This assessment measured…

Low teacher morale suggests a need for a renewed focus on joyful teaching. Moreover, mechanical lesson planning can discourage teacher candidates whose aspirations to teach pivot around their desire to make a difference in the lives of others while pursuing a career that will be joyful and fulfilling. Teacher educators can support candidates by…

The many negative effects that deficient building conditions have on educational quality have long been ignored. Until school systems can ensure all students have access to school buildings that are healthy, safe, comfortable, and dry, we cannot hope to adequately protect the well-being of students and staff, recruit and retain teachers, or…

This report is the fourth in a series examining the magnitude of the teacher shortage and the working conditions and other factors that contribute to the shortage. The series finds that the teacher shortage is real, large and growing. When indicators of teacher quality (certification, relevant training, experience, etc.) are taken into account,…

The teacher shortage in the United States is an increasingly recognized but still poorly understood crisis. Much attention has focused on the size of the shortage (about 110,000 teachers in the 2017-2018 school year, by one estimate), its monetary costs, and the negative effects of the shortage on students, teachers, and the public education…

Educators support complex social and emotional needs of students, often under stressful and demanding conditions. The current COVID-19 pandemic in particular, by closing schools almost overnight, left educators to support students and families under unprecedented conditions of virtual instruction during a global health crisis and staggering rates…

A thorough analysis of the AISD TELL survey results for 2013 through 2015 indicated two items consistently best reflected staff climate/working conditions at every school level each year: (a) School leadership makes a sustained effort to address teacher concerns about school leadership, and (b) Overall, my school is a good place to work and learn.

This paper provides teachers and teacher educators with food for thought by developing a broad, contemporary re-evaluation of the often-used analogy between teaching and the theatre. It does so by synthesizing insights from scholarly works in education with insights from writing about theatre, including both historical work and published…

Teachers play a vital role in the lives of their students. They impart knowledge, provide pastoral care, act as role models and, above all, create an environment that is conducive to learning. But teaching is fraught with numerous challenges that could lead to dissatisfaction; some teachers might decide to leave the profession entirely. In fact,…

This report highlights findings from the "Happy Schools Project: Capacity Building for Learner Well-being in the Asia-Pacific (Phase II)" pilots in Japan, Lao PDR and Thailand from 2018-2020. The aim of the pilots was to promote happiness in schools through enhanced learner well-being, social emotional learning and holistic development…

Students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning (LGBTQ) continue to experience bullying and harassment from their peers in K-12 education. LGBTQ students experience discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as intersecting identities that encompass race, disability status, ethnicity,…