Matt Barnum
@matt_barnum
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K-12 education reporter @WSJ; previously @Chalkbeat; fake stats vigilante; matt.barnum@wsj.com
Brooklyn
Joined April 2013
New— .Bloomberg Philanthropies had big ambitions, good intentions and a lot of money in their effort to get more low-income students into selective colleges. But this has proven harder than it initially seemed. @melissakorn and I explore why. (link below)
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RT @melissakorn: "We think we have moved the needle. We have not solved the problem." Bloomberg Philanthropies has fallen short of its loft….
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New from me and @melissakorn —. Trump's vow to abolish the U.S. Department of Education has gotten a lot of attention. But he also has a plan to use the power of the department to fight the culture war in education. (link below)
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Sources:.RAND Pew Teacher turnover Teacher pay Work from home research EdChoice Useful historical context
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13/13 Read more about challenges facing the teaching profession here:
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12/In more encouraging news, most teachers say they would still choose teaching as a profession, per RAND.
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11/All in all, would teachers recommend the profession to others? Not enthusiastically according to multiple polls, including this one from EdChoice.
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10/ One perk that few teachers have though is the ability to work from home. A recent study found that many workers value that in real dollars.
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9/Teachers still have lower salaries than most other professionals. On the other hand, teachers have perks that most others don't, including summers off and (usually) a pension.
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8/What about teacher pay? Amid rising inflation, average pay dipped in real terms between 2019 and 2021. (Keep an eye for more recent data to see if it's recovered.)
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7/ So are more teachers leaving the classroom? In 2022, turnover was the highest on record in several states. In 2023, it dipped—but was still higher than pre-pandemic rates in many states. We don't have data yet for 2024.
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6/Meanwhile, job-related stress among teachers is down from a couple years ago—but still much higher than other professionals, per RAND. Burnout is also nearly twice as high among teachers.
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5/ Still, a Pew survey found that teachers are significantly less satisfied on the job than other workers.
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4/Good news: a majority of teachers still say there are at least somewhat satisfied.
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3/Teachers who are "very satisfied" on the job is much lower than at any point between 1984 and 2012, per EdWeek.
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2/Teachers who say the stress of the job is "worth it" has declined steeply since the pandemic and is much lower than other college-educated workers, per RAND and USED data.
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1/What does the data say about teacher well-being as a new school year starts? Let's walk through some few stats.
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