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Every single one of my kids' teachers, from kindergarten now through seventh grade, I have absolutely adored. "I can't even tell you, like, I hold teachers in such high regard. "Even if they're getting paid a million dollars, they're not getting paid what they're worth," says Mike Kerr, a registered Republican and father of two children attending public schools near Fort Collins, Colo. Just 22% of the general public believe teachers are paid fairly, and three-quarters (75%) say teachers are "asked to do too much work for the pay they receive." The surprise here isn't that teachers think they're underpaid it's that much of the public agrees. "We need to help support teachers as much as we can so that the good ones aren't burning out and, you know, finding waitressing jobs because they can either get more money or they just don't want to deal with it," says Sylvia Gonzales, a longtime teacher in the Dallas area. Just 19% of teachers surveyed believe they are paid fairly, and 93% say they're asked to do too much for the pay they receive. Parents, teachers and the general public agree: Educators are overworked and underpaid We sorted through the results and smooshed them thematically into a handful of the most interesting takeaways.īefore we start, a reminder: Polling is a butter knife not a scalpel, and the margins of error here are worth keeping in mind: +/- 3.0 percentage points at the 95% confidence level for all general public respondents, +/- 4.8 percentage points for K-12 parents, and +/- 5.0 for K-12 teachers. One poll, of the general public, included 1,316 respondents with an oversampling of K-12 parents (452) the other surveyed 510 K-12 teachers.
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There's also division within the Republican Party around how to address that worry and whether banning books or restricting teachers is appropriate.īut there's a surprising consensus among the general public too: a sweeping respect for teachers and broad agreement that they're overworked and should be better paid. America is deeply divided, and those fissures are ripping through classrooms – with teachers trapped straddling the chasms.īut are parents, teachers and the public feeling as divided as the headlines make it seem?Ī pair of new, nationally-representative NPR/Ipsos polls reveals division, to be sure: A majority of Republican parents worry broadly about what children are being taught, compared to a minority of Democratic parents. We've all seen the headlines – about book bans, school board shoutfests and new laws to limit how teachers can talk about gender identity or racism.
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