Messaging Chapter: Communicating Effectively for a Strong and Diverse Teaching Profession
Chapter Summary
This chapter provides research, values-based messages, talking points, statistics, and frequently asked questions to bolster your ability to communicate in a way that advances policies and practices that support a strong and diverse teaching profession. Adapt them as necessary to fit your circumstance and audience, and always speak in your authentic voice, using local examples for maximum impact. This chapter’s numbered sections serve as an outline for developing your message (see the example below).
Establish Common Ground with Your Audience
The first step in effective persuasion is to begin from a point of agreement, which requires that we understand how most people feel about public education.
Eighty-five percent of people want the federal government to focus on “efforts to attract and retain good teachers,” making it one of Americans’ top priorities for public education. [184]
Seventy-one percent of parents think their children’s teachers are “excellent or good,” and only 6% believe they are “poor.” In short, Americans like their kids’ teachers. [185]
Sixty-five percent of Americans and 67% of parents think that “public school teacher salaries should increase,” while only 5% believe they are overpaid. [186]
If teachers went on strike for higher pay, 71% of Americans and 74% of parents would support them. [187]
Teachers are the fourth most-trusted profession, after nurses, doctors, and pharmacists. They are more than twice as trusted as bankers, realtors, and lawyers and many times more trusted than politicians [188]. (See Figure 3.)
People—especially parents—overwhelmingly support a quality public education system in the United States. So, remember, you are already substantially in agreement with most people even before you start making your case.
Figure 3. Rating of Selected U.S. Professions in Terms of Honesty and Ethical Standards in 2018
![Source: Forbes. (2018). Rating of selected U.S. professions in terms of honesty and ethical standards in 2018 by Statista in America’s Most & Least Trusted Professions [Infographic].](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5f4048bbd7dba74d40ec9c46/1619786058962-W06VNOWXMOFPD2YSZLY5/20190111_Trusted_Professions.jpeg)
Source: Forbes. (2018). Rating of selected U.S. professions in terms of honesty and ethical standards in 2018 by Statista in America’s Most & Least Trusted Professions [Infographic].
1. Express values-based messages
Values describe the kind of teaching profession and public education system we are trying to build. The most important value to convey when talking about public education is equal opportunity for all.[189] Talk about “our” students and “every child” because that will help your listeners visualize the children in their own lives. Remember, when you use positive value statements, you frame your policy preferences as positive too, using words that other people use and that everyone understands.
Following are some examples of values-based monologues you can use that, based on the polling shown above, start in agreement with listeners:
Every child deserves the opportunity to be taught by professional teachers who will help them reach their fullest potential. Children have different needs, strengths, cultures, and histories. That is why we need teachers who have the training to meet students where they are. Teachers are vital to creating a classroom climate that helps our kids have the best learning experience possible.
Every child in our community deserves the opportunity to grow up and live a successful life. Excellent schools and professional teachers make sure kids excel in crucial subjects, such as math, science, and reading. It is how we teach kids civic engagement and responsibility. Teachers are the most critical resource we have in our schools to help kids learn and understand the world around them.
Young people thrive when they have teachers who reflect their cultures and experiences. Our schools are better, and kids learn more, when our teachers represent students’ races and ethnicities, speak the same languages, and understand the varied cultures in a classroom. That is why we need to recruit and retain teachers representing the vast diversity of students in our schools.
2. Explain the problem
Once you have established that you are on the same side as your listener(s), explain the problem you are proposing to solve. Here are some talking points you can use:
Too many of our districts face persistent teacher shortages. The shortages are even worse in critical subject areas, such as math, science, and special education.
Severe teacher shortages disproportionately affect low-income students and students of color, exacerbating racial and economic inequities and leaving entire generations behind.
When schools and districts cannot find fully prepared and qualified teachers, they hire individuals without the teaching credentials they need—and some have no preparation at all.
More than 100,000 teaching positions were filled by teachers with inadequate training in 2017. Because they are underprepared for the classroom challenges, these teachers are less effective and more likely to leave the profession, which adds to the problem.
Students in schools with teacher shortages have underprepared teachers, too many substitute teachers, overcrowded classrooms, and canceled courses. These students have fewer chances to build strong relationships with their teachers, which is crucial to their development.
People are not entering the teaching profession because it has been devalued as a profession. We do not pay teachers as well as we pay other similarly educated people. For those who do enter, the combination of uncompetitive pay, huge student debt, and poor teaching conditions can cause even the most well-prepared teachers to leave their schools.
High teacher turnover undermines student achievement and consumes valuable staff time and resources.
While more teachers of color are being recruited overall, they also leave the profession at a higher rate than White teachers. This not only removes role models from all of our kids’ daily lives, but also means we have schools without leaders who have connections to the kids, their cultures, and their communities.
3. Explain the solution
Now that your audience understands the problem, explain the solutions you propose. This Playbook is full of ideas about how to recruit, prepare, and retain a professional teaching workforce. Here are several examples showing how to frame some of them, keeping in mind that you will use the specific solutions you have identified for your community:
We must invest in recruiting, retaining, and supporting a team of well-prepared teachers in our [community, city, town, district, school].
Retaining teachers and bolstering learning starts with building better relationships between teachers and students. We can do that by giving students more of a say about what happens in their classes or schools, investing in teachers’ professional development, nurturing more collaborative work environments, and creating time in our teachers’ schedules so they can collaborate with each other and with their students.
We can diversify our teaching pool by diversifying our recruitment strategies. We should market to historically black colleges and universities, offer service scholarships and forgivable loans, and encourage students in high school to pursue the teaching profession.
New teachers who get good preparation training are more likely to keep teaching. Well-prepared teachers are also the best at improving student learning and building our students’ knowledge across a broad range of subjects. We need to make comprehensive training affordable and accessible to new teachers before they are given full responsibility for their own classrooms. We need teacher residencies and certification programs for teachers that help them teach to our students’ cultural strengths.
Our schools need to be stable places of learning for all of our students. We need to reduce teacher turnover by improving teaching and learning conditions, creating opportunities for ongoing professional development for our teachers, and establishing collaborative leadership structures in our schools.
Principals play a crucial role in how our schools are run and how our teachers are treated. Our school districts should provide principals with the professional learning and support they need to be effective and empowering leaders who create a school culture that is safe and inclusive and that nurtures learning for students, staff, and families.
Once we hire high-quality teachers, we need to keep them in our schools. We need to pay teachers a competitive and equitable salary that considers the cost of living and the amount of education we require for the job. We need to look at other compensation, such as bonuses for taking on additional leadership roles or responsibilities. And we should look at other ways we can provide economic support to our teachers, such as housing subsidies.
4. Explain how your audience benefits
It is pretty difficult to convince people to support policies that appear to benefit people other than themselves, their families, and their friends. That means, whenever possible, you should explain to people how they benefit from the policies you are proposing. Here are some talking points to help you do that:
Recruiting and retaining teachers of color benefits each and every student. The benefits to students of color, especially Black students, are well documented: academic achievement, graduation rates, and plans to attend college all improve when they are taught by Black teachers. Having teachers of color benefits White students too, because they see and experience cultures and races that represent the world in which they will work.
Recruitment programs designed to diversify the pool of teachers in our schools do more than just increase our ranks of professional teachers. They also bring more cultural and racial diversity, more male teachers, and more people from lower-income backgrounds into the classroom. This means that our students are exposed to and build relationships with teachers who can remain role models to them for life.
Having well-qualified, trained, professional teachers in the classroom means all of our students do better. The more we support our teachers, the more they can stay at the top of their game. All of our kids do better academically—especially in subjects such as math and science—when their teachers have access to training and support.
Teacher training programs improve each and every student’s learning. These programs support teachers’ development of strategies that prioritize problem-solving ability, adaptability, critical thinking, and collaboration.
Every child benefits from having an engaged, creative role model as a teacher.
All students benefit when we can retain teachers in our schools. Teacher turnover creates instability in the whole school, not just in the classroom the teacher is leaving. In schools that can retain their professional teachers, there is a positive impact on overall student academic achievement.
Retaining professional teachers reduces turnover and keeps teachers in the classroom. This benefits everyone in our community because more of our tax dollars can be spent educating young people while less can be spent on constant recruitment, hiring, and training costs.
Having a good principal in our school is the second most important indicator of how well every single one of our kids will do, second only to teachers. The principal sets the tone for the entire school, manages the expectations for the teachers, and sets the bar for how our kids learn and behave. We need effective principals to ensure each student learns in a safe environment with high expectations for achievement.
Increasing teacher pay helps keep teachers in the classroom, brings more and diverse people into the profession, and improves student achievement—for EVERY student. Fewer teachers working second jobs means more teachers who have time for classroom preparation, development of curriculum, and development of creative teaching methods that engage young people.
Throw in Some Useful Facts
The best way to persuade people to your side on an issue or move supporters to action is to affect how they feel, not what they know. That is why values-based messaging is so important. But it will often be helpful to sometimes sparingly use facts or statistics to validate or provide “proof” of your values and ideas. Here are some for you to consider.
Causes and consequences of shortages
About 90% of the annual demand for new teachers is driven by teachers leaving the profession. Some teachers are retiring, but about two thirds of teachers leave for other reasons, primarily due to dissatisfaction with teaching.
Along with the cost to student learning, teacher turnover extracts a high financial price. Research shows that teacher replacement costs, including school and district expenses related to separation, recruitment, hiring, and training, can range from around $9,000 per teacher in rural and suburban districts to more than $20,000 in urban districts.
Teacher salaries are not competitive in many labor markets. In 38 states, mid-career teachers who head families of four or more qualify for three or more public benefit programs, such as subsidized children’s health insurance or free or reduced-price school meals. It is no surprise, then, that many studies have found that both beginning and veteran teachers are more likely to leave the profession or change schools because of low salaries.
Teachers who enter the classroom without adequate training are two to three times more likely to leave, creating a revolving door for teachers.
Teachers in districts with the highest salary schedules are 31% less likely to leave their schools or the profession than teachers in districts with poorer pay scales.
An analysis of 2014 and 2016 data on teacher qualifications and experience found that schools with high numbers of students of color were four times more likely in 2016 to employ uncertified teachers than schools with low enrollment of students of color.
Native American teachers and teachers of color
In the 2015–16 school year, Native American teachers and teachers of color comprised 20% of the U.S. teacher workforce. Although their representation is increasing, it is still disproportionately low compared to the percentage of Native American students and students of color, who together comprised 50% of students in public schools in 2014.
The gap between Latinx teachers and students is more significant than for any other racial or ethnic group. In 2014, more than 25% of students were Latinx, while Latinx teachers represented less than 9% of teachers in 2015—even though the shares of Latinx teachers and students are growing faster than those of any other racial or ethnic group.
While Native American teachers and teachers of color as a collective group is growing, Black and Native American teachers are a declining share of the teaching force. Black teachers made up more than 8% of teachers in 1987 but made up only 6.7% in 2015. Similarly, the percentage of Native American teachers declined from 1.1% in 1987 to 0.4% in 2015.
The pool of potential Black and Latinx teaching candidates dwindles along the potential teacher pipeline from high school graduation to college enrollment, teacher preparation, and employment as a teacher. For example, in 2007, Black and Latinx students comprised more than 38% of k–12 students but less than 28% of high school graduates and about 24% of high school graduates who enrolled in a 2- or 4-year college the following fall. Black and Latinx teacher preparation candidates made up just 19% of all candidates in fall 2008. Four years later, in 2012, Black and Latinx candidates comprised only 14% of bachelor’s degrees in education.
·Longitudinal data from North Carolina showed that Black students assigned to a class with a Black teacher at least once in 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade were less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to aspire to go to college.
The benefit of having a Black teacher for just 1 year in elementary school can persist over several years, especially for Black students from low-income families.
Compensation
The average weekly wages of public school teachers (adjusted for inflation) decreased by $21 from 1996 to 2018, from $1,216 to $1,195 (in 2018 dollars). In contrast, other college graduates’ weekly wages rose by $323, from $1,454 to $1,777, over this period.
In 38 states, teachers who head families earn so little that they qualify for public benefit programs. This means their children could receive free or reduced-price lunch in the same schools in which they teach.
Over two thirds of former teachers who would consider returning to the classroom say that more competitive salaries would be a very significant factor in persuading them to return.
Other useful statistics
More than two thirds of teachers have to take on student debt to enter a profession dedicated to creating opportunities for others.
College graduates who do pursue a teaching career begin with an average debt of $20,000 for a bachelor’s degree and $50,000 for those who go on to complete a master’s degree.
When new teachers stay in their jobs, they build meaningful relationships with students that are crucial to students’ success. Districts also avoid the cost of having to hire new teachers every year, which can be $20,000 or more in urban school districts.
Residencies produce diverse teachers who are more representative of the students they teach. Roughly 45% of new teachers in residency programs are people of color—more than double the national average.
Teachers who complete residencies are more likely to stay in their jobs, especially in the high-need districts that sponsor them. “Studies of teacher residency programs consistently point to the high retention rates of their graduates, even after several years in the profession, generally ranging from 80–90% in the same district after 3 years and 70–80% after 5 years,” according to a Learning Policy Institute report.
Example of a Message Developed Following the Outline in This Chapter
Every child deserves the opportunity to be taught by professional teachers who will help the child reach their fullest potential. Children have different needs, strengths, cultures, and histories. That is why we need teachers who have the training to meet students where they are. Teachers are vital to creating a classroom climate that helps our kids have the best learning experience possible.
When schools and districts cannot find fully prepared and qualified teachers, they hire individuals without the teaching credentials they need—and some have no preparation at all:
Teachers who enter the classroom without adequate training are two to three times more likely to leave, creating a revolving door for teachers.
An analysis of 2014 and 2016 data on teacher qualifications and experience found that in 2016 schools with high numbers of students of color were four times more likely to employ uncertified teachers than schools with low enrollment of students of color.
New teachers who get good preparation are more likely to keep teaching. Prepared teachers are also the best at improving student learning and building our students’ knowledge across a broad range of subjects. We need to put in place comprehensive training before new teachers enter the classroom. We need teacher residencies and certification programs for teachers that help them teach to our students’ cultural strengths.
All of our students benefit when we can retain our teachers. Teacher turnover creates instability in the whole school, not just in the classroom the teacher is leaving. In schools that can retain their professional teachers, there is a positive impact on all students’ academic achievement.
Shift from Negative to Positive Frames
Keep in mind that when you are trying to advance policy, your messaging goal is to persuade people to do something: to endorse, to vote, to call in or email their support, or to organize. To that end, avoid triggering negative emotional reactions to what you say and, instead, put your ideas in a frame that evokes positive feelings, such as:
Shift From
Shift To
Negative Frame: We do not need teachers; we just need the right technology for learning online.
Positive Frame: All young people need opportunities to access solid and positive relationships with educators and other adults. In the same way that roots support and nourish trees as they grow, strong developmental relationships support and nurture young people’s success, giving them guidance and encouragement.
Negative Frame: Teachers should be “heroes” who work out of the goodness of their hearts, take health risks for the sake of parents, and they don’t require equitable compensation.
Positive Frame: Teachers work for a living just like any other profession, and they have families to support too. If we expect teachers to take on extra health risks or financial burdens, the profession will keep shrinking. We need real action and funding to attract teachers to our schools and retain them. Policies and budgets at every scale must support teaching as a valued profession by increasing wages, benefits, and professional development opportunities, both now and in the future.
Negative Frame: There are inherently “good” and “bad” teachers, which has nothing to do with environment or resources.
Positive Frame: Many schools cannot attract or retain enough qualified teachers because salaries and supports are not sufficient. Just as construction workers need scaffolding to build a structure, we need to ensure our teachers have the tools and resources they need to be supported and thrive in their jobs as educators. At every level, policies and budgets need to prioritize professional resources, salary increases, and mentorship for teachers, as they powerfully shape young people’s lives.
Frequently Asked Questions
These sample questions and answers will help you respond to the tough questions you are likely to face when advocating for policies that would improve teaching conditions and produce supportive leaders in schools across the country.
Q: Residency programs sound great. But given the current shortage of teachers, don’t we need to put new teachers in charge of classrooms as soon as possible?
A: Simply getting more teachers into classrooms will not solve the shortage if they do not receive effective training and support. Sending teachers into a classroom without support is like a construction worksite without scaffolding. Teachers who enter the classroom without adequate training are two to three times more likely to leave. Students lose out too. Their learning stagnates as districts struggle to replace teachers year after year, but our communities ultimately lose out, the loss of human potential diminishes us all.
Moreover, underprepared teachers hired to fill jobs quickly are disproportionately concentrated in schools with high numbers of students who require additional support because of the structural barriers they face: lack of health care access, nutritious food, and stable housing, as well as discrimination and racism. Teacher residencies go beyond a temporary fix. They are smart, long-term investments that help districts recruit and retain high-quality teachers, supporting them in that district for the long haul, which reduces shortages in communities across the country.
Q: How can cash-strapped states and districts afford to pay for residency programs and other training for new teachers?
A: Many states and districts have used federal funds to get teacher residency programs off the ground, including Teacher Quality Partnership grants funded through the Higher Education Act. Policymakers can also use funds from Titles I and II of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to support teacher residency programs. Some teacher residency programs rely on federal AmeriCorps funding to support stipends for resident teachers. Others reallocate some substitute teacher or teacher aide dollars to pay stipends to residents serving part time in these roles.
While specific costs vary, residency programs contribute to a high-quality, sustainable teaching workforce. In the long term, they pay off by producing effective teachers who are more likely to stay in their jobs. The well-established Boston Teacher Residency, for instance, invests $38,000 per resident on training, financial support, and mentoring. This investment in training residents who commit to teaching in the district for at least 3 years helps Boston schools avoid the substantial cost of hiring new teachers, which can reach $20,000 per teacher.
Q: Are service scholarships and loan forgiveness programs a good investment? How do we know we are not just paying for the education of people who would have become teachers anyway?
A: Research on service scholarship and loan forgiveness programs has found that these programs effectively attract people who would not otherwise have become teachers. Furthermore, these programs successfully attract those who were already planning to become teachers to subjects and locations they otherwise would not have chosen.
Q: The federal government already offers loan forgiveness and service scholarship programs for teachers. Aren’t these sufficient?
A: The U.S. Department of Education currently offers several loan forgiveness and service scholarship programs for teachers: the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, Stafford Loan Forgiveness for Teachers, Federal Perkins Loan Cancellation, and TEACH grants. While federal policymakers should continue to expand these valuable programs, uneven funding, limited availability, and structural challenges, including eligibility barriers put up by past administrations, mean they sometimes do not work and are not enough on their own. Qualification criteria are confusing and are changed, such that even prospective teachers who are eligible for federal programs can face the possibility of significant debt, which can prevent them from pursuing teaching careers in the first place or force them to quit early in their careers. States and districts can make a big difference in recruiting and retaining teachers to the highest-need schools and subjects by implementing their own smart, research-driven policies—including service scholarships and student loan forgiveness.
Q: College students choose to take on debt to pursue their desired careers. Why shouldn’t they have to honor that debt like everyone else?
A: Teachers take on debt in the form of student loans so they can devote their careers to helping students realize their potential—even knowing that they are likely to earn less than they could in other professions. Student loan forgiveness is a badly needed policy to lessen the debt burden for hardworking teachers who commit to the schools and subjects in which students need them the most. We offer loan forgiveness for doctors to work in high-need areas, a very successful policy. We can and should do the same for teachers.
Q: Are there other teaching conditions beyond school leadership that matter to attracting and retaining quality teachers in our highest-need schools?
A: Teachers’ working conditions are also students’ learning conditions. Teachers should not have to work in deteriorating or unsafe environments, and our children should not have to learn in them. A lack of resources, including books, a library, computers, internet access, or reliable photocopy machines, can limit teachers and their students. Although teachers do their best to cope with resource deficits—often spending hundreds of dollars of their own money—many become demoralized and leave for a higher-paying district or a different profession entirely. Policymakers need to ensure that teachers have access to the essential educational tools that students need in order to learn.
Q: If students living in poverty wake up hungry and face severe disadvantages at home, can being taught by stable, well-prepared teachers and having a solid school leader make a difference?
A: Yes. Teachers are the most important in-school factor affecting student achievement, and school leaders are the second most important factor. Factors that help recruit and retain a strong and stable teacher workforce—like better working conditions—can make a difference.
Q: Can policy lead to more teachers interested in teaching high-need students?
A: Yes. Teacher turnover is 50% higher in schools that serve a large number of students living in poverty than those who do not. Teachers are more likely to leave schools that have lower salaries and less-desirable working conditions. These conditions often exist in schools with more students of color and more students from low-income households. In contrast, teachers in wealthier communities often teach smaller classes, are responsible for fewer students, and have a greater say in schoolwide decisions. Policies that produce stable, supportive school leaders who are committed to serving in high-need schools and who give their teachers opportunities to collaborate and a voice in decision-making will go a long way toward attracting and retaining high-quality teachers in the schools where students need them most.
Q: If people already choose to be teachers knowing they will earn less than other college graduates, why should taxpayers foot the bill for higher salaries?
A: When every student has a quality teacher in his or her classroom, entire communities benefit. Competitive salaries and benefits get more quality teachers in classrooms and, just as important, encourage them to stay. That improves student performance in key subjects like science, technology, engineering, and math, helping our society meet the challenges we face and improving the economy for everyone. Critical thinking and reading abilities also improve when students have quality teachers, strengthening our democracy.
Q: If teachers are in the job because they care about students, why are they so concerned with how much money they make?
A: Teachers are highly trained professionals who require the things that all professionals do in order to do their jobs well—things like access to professional development, opportunities to grow, and fair compensation. Everyone deserves to build a life for themselves and their families. Further, fair compensation also relates to the skills one has to develop to do a job well. To value teachers means to ensure they are well prepared and well paid for the critical contributions they make to children’s lives. When teachers thrive, students thrive: They are better able to contribute to our economy and democracy, which benefits society as a whole.
Q: If student poverty is a significant indicator of student performance, would paying teachers more make a difference?
A: Teacher quality contributes to student achievement more than any other in-school factor. For students living in poverty, teacher quality plays an even bigger role. A growing body of research—including studies from New York, North Carolina, and California—has shown that teacher qualifications matter for teaching quality and student achievement. While no single policy can solve the teacher shortage, competitive compensation is crucial for recruiting and retaining talented educators who can help every student reach his or her potential—especially when combined with policies that improve teaching conditions and produce supportive school leaders.
Q: Teachers are free to move to other districts or schools that pay them more—could we let the free market sort this out rather than forcing districts to fund higher salaries?
A: Often, school districts that serve high percentages of students living in poverty cannot afford to offer salaries competitive with wealthier districts, leaving them unable to hire quality teachers. This forces poorer districts to hire fewer well-prepared and experienced teachers and to deal with high turnover. Teachers move districts, which hurts students’ learning in crucial areas such as math, science, and reading. We need to compensate teachers fairly no matter where they work so that every child receives a quality education no matter where they live.
Q: How can the United States and states pay for public salary increases, especially while working toward economic recovery?
A: Policymakers can increase teacher salaries using savings from having to replace fewer teachers every year. Replacing a single teacher can cost up to $20,000, and school districts across the country spend a combined $8.5 billion annually finding new teachers. Paying high-quality teachers enough to build good lives in the communities where they work not only boosts student achievement but also saves taxpayer money by reducing the number of students who repeat grades or drop out of school entirely. Learn more about what spending looks like at the federal level by playing the game Fund Education Instead.