Notes on the State of Education

A teacher's examination of public education

Photo by Jonathan Lim on Unsplash

It is misleading to say that the public education system is broken. Public education was designed to separate children into groups of obedient, compliant, workforce ready cogs. Instead of educating children with unique intersections of race, gender, identity, strengths, and weaknesses, we dispense and grade standardized lessons. In this sense, public education has been a very successful system; unchanged for years.

Cartoon of “Factory model schools” by Awantha Artigala

This industrialized model centers most of the rhetoric surrounding disrupting or dismantling public education as a system. I’m also responsible for using these terms. As a young teacher, I romanticized an image of teachers banding together to break an unjust, inequitable, and racist system. Damn the man! Save the Empire!

Terms like disrupting the status quo are as seductive as they are subversive. Everyone knows that standardized schooling does not work for marginalized and vulnerable students. The pandemic exposed these problems that educators had previously been too powerless or afraid to change. Five years ago, we had an opportunity to redesign the system, but systemic problems are complex in nature: American schools were not originally designed to educate students of color. Instead, schools in the United States standardize, marginalize, and under-educate children of color. In order to address issues of disproportionality and racial predictability in the lowest and highest achieving schools, teachers must “engage in narratives that compel [them] to synthesize [their] knowledge and transform [that] into direct and measurable action.”¹

These are the actions that appeal to me after more than two decades in the classroom. Not breaking or dismantling, but making a new system that is more human, hopeful, anti-racist, and empowering. Instead of outlining solutions we’ve all heard, (and that I think we all know won’t actually improve anything) I want to provide three what-if and how might we statements that will hopefully spark constructive discussion instead of the familiar finger-pointing and politicized magniloquence we are used to hearing.

I. What if teachers were paid as professionals?

Public school teachers earn between $48,000 and $67,000 per year according to salary.com. In 2022, USAFacts reported the average public school teacher salary was $66,397, an increase of $1,104 or 1.69% from the previous year. Federal statistics from the 2020–21 academic year show that teachers work over 400 hours of overtime a year (ING Foundation Survey), and 17% of teachers have a second job (Education Week). The average teacher has 14 years of experience and approximately 55% of elementary school teachers and 59% of secondary school teachers hold a post-baccalaureate degree. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 98.8% of teachers participated in professional learning during the 2024-2025 school year.

It’s clear that many teachers spend their careers working to strengthen their pedagogical practice through professional development or graduate degrees. Since most professional learning is provided by school districts, districts determine what teachers are learning. District administration decides which outside consultants give keynote lectures, and which curriculum developers peddle their wares. If a teacher wants to pursue a graduate degree, they must do so at their own expense or apply for federal student loans. According to the Learning Policy Institute, over 60% of all full-time, public school teachers—about 2.1 million—have taken out student loans to pay for their education. Fewer teachers are pursuing their own professional growth, relying on standardized curriculum trainings to improve their pedagogical practice.

How might we value teachers more?

When I first saw Key and Peele’s TeachingCenter I laughed so hard lemonade squirted out of my nose. I love this tongue-in-cheek skit showing sports analysts breaking down teachers’ craft, showing their talent in the classroom, and ultimately, showing that teachers should be valued the way we admire professional athletes.

In an OpEd for Inside Higher Ed titled, What If We Valued Teachers as Much as Athletes?, Tiffany Karalis Noel discusses this very question. Noel primarily focuses on college instructors, but the ripple effect she discusses applies to K-12 education as well.

Education would no longer be considered a chore or a necessary evil, but rather a celebrated, communal event. Just as we gather to watch a Final Four game or a World Cup match, we would come together to watch, learn and engage in intellectual pursuits. This paradigm shift would create a ripple effect in society—inspiring a culture that values learning, intellect and the development of human potential.

A societal investment in public education has the potential to transform teaching and learning, which would lead to great improvements in public health, an improved economy, and exponential growth in creativity and innovation. Investing in public education improves society as a whole, impacting multiple, overlapping areas.

So, how might we pay teachers more? Dan Pink outlines his plan to pay teachers $100,000 per year, by lengthening the school year, tightening teacher accountability in order to remove poor-performing teachers, and raising taxes. Sounds easy, right?

This is a solution unlikely to gain widespread support. David Labaree, historian of education and Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education at Stanford University, believes that public education was designed to promote three educational goals: democratic equality, social efficiency, and a student’s zone of opportunity. Labaree writes in Public Goods, Private Goods: The American Struggle Over Educational Goals:

“The biggest problem facing American schools is not the conflict, contradiction, and compromise that arise from trying to keep a balance among [these] educational goals. Instead, the main threat comes from the growing dominance of the social mobility goal over the others. Although this goal (in coalition with the democratic equality goal) has been a major factor in motivating a progressive politics of education over the years, the increasing hegemony of the mobility goal and its narrow consumer-based approach to education have led to the reconceptualization of education as a purely private good.”

If society views gaining a public education as a private good, it becomes a zero-sum game; someone wins, others lose. I doubt most taxpayers would be willing to fund a public school system that doesn’t guarantee their own child’s success. This is why private schools exist: reserving so-called better educational experiences and promising social mobility for the most privileged students and their families.

Perhaps the question of adding value to teachers is more complicated than just paying them more. Yes, teachers’ salaries should reflect their professionalism and importance to society. However, until we reexamine the purpose of public education and move away from a consumer-based approach to an egalitarian model, society will never see teachers as providing the same value as professional athletes. It’s a shame because teachers and professional athletes promote social connections and cultural values. As a society, we need less competitiveness and more compassion and collaboration. Valuing teachers as athletes would call into question our deeply American values.

II. What if public schools were not standardized?

Educators know that standardized curricular materials and state-mandated testing are not good for kids, but many continue teaching to these tests and reading from scripted guides because they are either overwhelmed by the unrealistic expectations placed upon them, or they are ill-equipped to push back on an educational system founded upon these harmful ideas and practices. When society values standardized curricula and test scores above student relationships and learning, schools continue to promote teachers with poor instructional methods and inhumane classrooms. Schooling becomes a combination of lackluster lessons, weeks of standardized test preparation, and hours of standardized testing, all in the name of accountability.

Students will not learn at higher levels without the benefit of good teaching, a strong curriculum and adequate resources.

Linda Darling-Hammond

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was the education system I entered into as a young teacher. I have no experience teaching before NCLB. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 was a U.S. Act of Congress that reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, effectively scaling up the federal role in holding schools accountable for student outcomes, deciding that the best way to hold schools and teachers accountable was to standardize every classroom. NCLB was a very expensive legislative act, and almost 25 years later, we’ve seen very little impact on student achievement. Punitive measures, in the name of accountability and measurement, have not improved the quality of teaching and learning in the United States. According to Linda Darling-Hammond, our most marginalized students are “more severely victimized by a system not organized to support their learning.” This overemphasis on standardized testing, basal readers, and standardized curricula has caused severe harm to teachers and students. Getting rid of public school standardization is more complicated than magically disappearing NCLB. In a perfect world, we would pay teachers a professional salary, provide them adequate time to plan, collaborate, and reflect on their pedagogy, and society would fund schools based on need, not property tax or income. Today, the drawbacks that lawmakers used in 2000 as reasons to justify the ratification of NCLB are pervasive in public education. We already have an inequitable distribution of resources and wider achievement gaps. While common academic standards makes sense, cookie-cutter lessons, unvaried activities, and standardized tests that do not accurately measure learning do not.

How might we de-emphasize standardized learning?

Standardized classroom experiences are tied to NCLB and standardized testing. When teachers are expected to spend a great deal of class time preparing for a series of tests, students are subjected to repetitive instruction out of boxed curricula. This Same Way Same Day practice is one-dimensional, and isn’t proven to increase student learning or standardized test scores. So, instead of teachers spending another year trying to teach to the test in the same way as their colleagues, what if schools gave teachers more time to improve their craft? How could administrators give teachers more collaborative time with their teammates to reflect on their pedagogical practice and experiment with creative learning experiences? School systems are complex and answers to these questions require multiple perspectives examining different parts of the system. For my own part, I do not rely on my school district to improve my pedagogy. I use what little time I have to hone my teacher moves and connect with other educators, learning how they teach. I practice what psychologist, Adam Grant, refers to as confident humility.

Confidence is how much you believe in your capabilities and humility is how much you recognize that you're fallible. You're human, you're imperfect, you have weaknesses along with strengths. You can believe in your strengths while still knowing that you have weaknesses, too.

Adam Grant

I’m confident that standardized learning and testing are not what is best for students. I teach to my students, not to the test. However, I recognize that my students are working in a standardized public education system where grades and test scores are paramount. And so, I balance as best as I can, the needs of my students, with the demands of the system. I push back when and where I can, acknowledging this harsh reality for my students. There will be standardized tests, but I don’t have to emphasize them. People will question how and why my classroom looks and operates differently from others, and I will address those concerns while advocating for my students.

III. What if schools were more human?

This last question is one that I’ve been thinking about for some time. In some ways, I’ve been slowly returning to my humanity, and that of my students, throughout my 20+year career. But, especially since teaching through the dehumanizing effects of the pandemic, I’ve decided that this is my hill. I want the experience of school to be one that affirms my students’ identities, amplifies their humanity, and allows me to teach with joy. I want to work in a system that does not diminish our collective humanity. School should be filled with laughter, debate, critical thinking, compromise, and learning. I don’t want to feel pressure to rush my students through a boxed lesson because we are “supposed to” be on a different page. I hate the feeling of have to and want more agency to plan for and design experiences where we get to learn together.

How might we re-humanize public education?

One of the quickest ways I have found to be more human in my classroom is to slow down so that I can build deeper connections with my students. Removing strict transition times and allowing for longer periods of uninterrupted learning, helps my students be more engaged and connect to what they are learning in a deeper way. While many teachers are under a strict timetable and almost all are unable to alter their master schedule, I find that there are a few ways I treat my students as humans, despite teaching and learning in a dehumanized system.

I privilege the care of my students.

I believe caring for my students’ well-being, including their family’s, is very important. I encourage my students to take care of themselves throughout the year. This ranges from letting my students go to the bathroom when they need to and allowing them to eat breakfast in my classroom after the bell rings. Of course, I have boundaries (my students can’t be in the bathroom for 45 minutes or eat snacks all day), but my students know that when they are in my classroom, I care for them.

I invite feedback.

I know that I make mistakes. Whenever I am struggling to explain a concept or illustrate a point, I ask my students for help. My students may be young (fifth-grade), but I make sure they have a voice in my classroom. And while I cannot follow all the feedback I receive from ten-year-olds (i.e.: Mr. Neibauer, can we skip Math today?), I work with my students to improve the quality and relevance of our learning experiences, assignments, and assessments. My students co-designers.

I listen to concerns.

At the start of each school year, I teach my students about constructivist listening:² I will agree to listen to and think about you in exchange for you doing the same for me. Instead of beginning the school year with the sole intention of getting through my curriculum maps, I start with a manifesto of sorts: We all have different perspectives, and we must seek to understand more than trying to be correct. We need each other’s help to become better listeners and learners. We are all equally human and deserving of each other’s respect and attention as we learn together.

I am flexible with deadlines.

I realize that in the “real world” there are deadlines. We all have deadlines. However, I argue that most deadlines we deem as “hard” don’t need to be so rigid. In my own adult life, when I ask, I receive extensions more often than not. I have high expectations for my students, and I realize that sometimes, in order to reach a goal, they may need more time. I have soft deadlines for all assignments and projects. If my students ask for the weekend to complete an assignment, I allow it. If my students need an extra week for a project because they were sick, I absolutely grant it. Putting a zero in my gradebook does not help my students reach their goals. My job is to hold my students to high standards and help them reach those expectations.

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Teacher pay, standardization, and dehumanizing school conditions are not new revelations. I am not providing the first clarion call to action. There are dozens of reform efforts that would improve teaching and learning for teachers and students. Wrangling these questions helps me remain grounded in my work as a public school teacher. Unfortunately, those who work closest with caring for and educating youth are never consulted for systemic reform. Lawmakers and school board members are often so far removed from classroom ecosystems, they are ignorant to the long-term effects of their reform efforts. Most of the issues plaguing teachers and students are outside of our control. It feels hopeless to rage against the public education machine. This is why I find it more helpful to think of ways we can rehumanize our classrooms, instead of dismantling the entire system and start over. What if? questions and How might we? statements help me envision schooling experiences that are hopeful. They cost me nothing, and allow me to find creative, and more human ways to make teaching and learning better for me and my students.

Have a great week!

— Adrian

Resources

• I'm a fan of Trevor Muir’s videos. I’ve referenced them often, including this one about standardized testing and this older one about how testing is hurting society.

Why Not? A collaboration with The Washington Post to jolt America’s imagination

• These Why Not? articles are fascinating! I appreciate how Dan Pink is starting with curiosity instead of certainty. You can read many of them on the free linked PDF, however, some are only available to read (or watch) on The Washington Post.

Why America's Schools Have A Money Problem

• This npr article may be almost ten years old, but the problem persists. Schools in wealthier communities have more resources than schools in poorer areas. The schools that have higher costs and need more resources are those that are disproportionately underfunded. The entire npr ED series is worth reading, but especially this article regarding teacher salaries.

What you need to know to follow the money debate behind the teacher walkouts

• This article is more personal. Seven years ago, Colorado teachers protested at our state Capitol, arguing for higher pay. While CO has unique funding measures (e.g.: marijuana tax money), the national teacher salary average is only $60,483.

Make Schools More Human | New York Times

• I don’t usually pay to read OpEd pieces, but when Harvard Graduate of Education Professor, Jal Mehta, wrote one for the New York Times about making schools more human, I unlocked the paywall immediately. If you can’t read this article, consider this piece from the Harvard Graduate School of Education or watch Mehta discuss making schools more human.

• If you don’t have time to read Adam Grant’s book, Think Again, watch his TED talk on expertise, confidence, and the power of humility.

1. More Courageous Conversations About Race by Glen Singleton

2. Adapted from Becerra & Weissglass, 2004. Take It Up: Leading for Educational Equity)