Americans Love Teachers! (Despite All the Critics)

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Given the beating that public school teachers have taken in recent months, the results of the 43^rd annual PDK/Gallup poll were kind of surprising. The headline for it could have read “Americans love teachers!”

According to the poll, more than 70 percent of Americans say they have trust and confidence in public school teachers. And other findings in the poll backed up that confidence. For instance:

• 69 percent gave teachers in their communities an A or B grade, compared to only 50 percent in 1984;
• 67 percent said they would like to have their children pursue public school teaching careers; and
• 76 percent said high-achieving high school students should be recruited for teaching careers.

These are not the opinions of people who are down on public schools or the people who work in them. 

Unfortunately, the subhead for the story could easily have read “However, the demonizing of teachers by politicians, journalists and ‘reformers’ continues apace.” One of the poll’s findings showed that 68 percent of people say they hear more bad stories than good about teachers in the news.

Indeed, in the last year, critics have questioned teacher salaries as well as how teachers are hired and fired. They have also harped on evaluating teachers based on student test scores. That effort has cooled off a bit since word broke of the Atlanta cheating scandal—a predictable mess that resulted directly from high-stakes testing. But it has hardly gone away.

There was even a Hollywood movie starring Cameron Diaz called Bad Teacher.

Both the text and subtext of most of these efforts has been that American teachers are not quite up to scratch. As this poll shows though, that message is not resonating with ordinary Americans. William Bushaw, PDK’s executive director and the poll’s co-director, said that the high approval ratings reflected in this year’s poll are no fluke. His organization has seen the public give teachers high marks for years.

While this is good news, the crusade to tear down public schools has been going on for decades, and it’s not going to stop now. There will be more attacks, many of the masquerading as reforms. But teachers can be reassured—at least for now—that the American public is still overwhelmingly on their side.

As Bushaw put it, “There’s a lot more support out there for teachers than, I think, teachers believe or know.”

Price is managing editor of Teaching Tolerance.