President Obama with 2015 teacher of the year Shanna Peeples.
Every year, each state chooses its teacher of the year. This year, the Council of Chief State School Officers and Scholastic
surveyed those outstanding teachers about their jobs, and it's worth paying attention to what they have to say about the barriers their students face and where they'd direct education funding.
Asked what barriers to learning their students face that affect academic success the most, 76 percent of the teachers said family stress, 63 percent said poverty, and 52 percent said learning and psychological problems.
“Those three factors in many ways are the white elephant in the living room for us in education,” said Jennifer Dorman, Maine’s 2015 Teacher of the Year who teaches special-education classes for seventh- and eighth-graders. “As teachers, we know those factors present huge barriers to our students’ success. Helping students cope with those three factors is probably the most important part of my job. But on a national level, those problems are not being recognized as the primary obstacles.”
In line with the 63 percent who said poverty was a top barrier to student success, anti-poverty initiatives were the top answer the teachers gave when asked to choose three areas where they'd focus school funding to have the greatest impact on student learning—48 percent chose anti-poverty initiatives, while 37 percent chose early learning and 35 percent chose reducing barriers to learning (which would include poverty, obviously).
Nearly all of the teachers said that higher standards would have a positive effect on student learning. But "accountability/assessments"—the buzzwords for standardized testing—ranked dead last on the list of ways teachers would focus school funding.
(Via)