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This is the 117th post for this newsletter, and writing it has been a ride. As classroom teacher, and as an organizer with the South Carolina educational advocacy nonprofit SC for Ed, I initially started writing this because I would run into questions (or criticisms), usually online, that warranted more than a brief response. So my first audience consisted of folks in my state who were riled up about schools or the teaching profession in some way.
My first post was very specifically about South Carolina’s educational finance issues:
At this point, I have about 700 subscribers from across the country, mainly because the newsletter has been shared by some amazing thinkers in education and politics, like Charleston, South Carolina former journalist and current ACLU comms director Paul Bowers, Forbes senior contributor and education writer Peter Greene, and Diane Ravitch’s Network for Public Education. Since my potential audience is a lot more diverse at this point, I’d love to know what you, the reader, are interested in.
Please help me out by taking the following extremely brief survey (like, two or three questions brief!) so that I can better understand what my current readers actually want to see. None of your personal information will be required, and if you know folks who might occasionally read the newsletter but aren’t subscribed, please feel free to share the survey with them.
In honor of the topic of surveys in general, here’s a very non-exhaustive list of some big surveys I conducted or helped conduct in the past, and/ or press coverage of those surveys.
Two-thirds of SC educators in survey report pre-existing conditions as schools prep to reopen (July 2020), a piece from the Charleston City Paper about a survey we conducted to find out how many school employees had one of the CDC’s then-current list of pre-existing conditions likely to cause complications from COVID-19.
Findings from SC for Ed’s “Temperature Check” #1 (September 2020), a survey on school reopening procedures during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.
SC for Ed survey shows many educators plan to leave their current jobs (September 2020), a story from WCAV TV about the survey results.
Findings From SC for Ed’s “Temperature Check #4 (March 2021), a report about school facilities that suggested that most South Carolina schools did not have adequate filtration and air exchange to meet then-current CDC standards for reopening safely during the pandemic.
Findings From SC for Ed’s “Temperature Check #5” (November 2021), a survey on how many teachers were being asked to cover “extra duties,” often in response to major staffing shortages. The survey of about 1,600 school staff members showed that the majority did not believe their schools had enough staff in place to remain safely open, and that most were being required by schools to cover the duties of absent staff members at least once a week.
SC for Ed says schools ‘potentially broken’; Horry County points to efforts to improve staffing (November 2021), an article from WBTW which quoted me as saying “Teachers just feel like they’re drowning. I saw that word over and over again the past couple surveys… that people just feel like they’re underwater”.
More SC teachers are leaving education. Leaders say this is causing a crisis (March 2021), a piece from WCNC Charlotte about survey findings that showed 39% of surveyed South Carolina teachers in 2021 did not plan to return to their current jobs the following schools year. (The 2021-22 school year did turn out to break records for teacher attrition in the state, a trend that has only continued since.)
Thinking back on these surveys, it is easy to be a little pessimistic, because while much of this data stimulated discussion and drew attention to facts on the ground, little of it seemed to amount to real policy change in the short term. It’s easy to feel like a prophet in a Greek tragedy when you realize, for example, that there is about to be a massive exodus of people from the teaching profession, but state leaders continue to be much more concerned about whether kids are reading books with gay people in them, or about passing school voucher policies that will inevitably hurt public school funding— and by extension, further hurt teacher recruitment and retention.
But the former research teacher in me likes to think that data is important for at least two reasons.
One, knowledge itself is worthwhile, and being able to have some data to compare with our perceptions of what is going on might help us at least understand better the problems we’re facing, and to step outside of the perceptual bubbles we all live inside. (As a former research teacher, of course, I have to add a huge caveat that polling, though valuable, is inherently somewhat biased, and that bigger and more random samples would have made these surveys even more meaningful— though they likely would not have led to any more meaningful policy actions.)
And, two, real progress always seems to be a marathon, not a sprint. Or, as Dr. King hopefully put it, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Hopefully, as we can look back at data over time and see trends more clearly, we can use that to galvanize us to push our leaders to do better. I certainly don’t believe that elected officials are generally driven by data or sound research; it’s up to members of the public to use what we know to be true to find out what the bottom line is for most public officials, and to use whatever legitimate leverage we have to create the best outcomes.
Thank you for reading, and thank you to everyone who has supported this work by sharing and donating!
One of the reasons I decided to collect some data is that I’m considering what the future of this newsletter will be. I really enjoy writing these pieces (most of the time) and hope you find them useful. As someone who derives a lot of my income from writing and performing, I do unfortunately have to prioritize how I spend my time. If you are able to support me through a paid subscription or donation, I will be much more likely to keep writing these pieces because I will be able to justify the time.
My most recent piece (in honor of Tax Day):