Photo courtesy Gates Foundation
Want to hold onto your best teachers? Put good principals in your schools.
For years, teachers have been telling me that a good principalsomeone who is supportive, focuses on improving instruction, and creates a healthy school climateis the single most important factor in their choice of schools to work in.
Now a national survey of 40,000 teachers confirms my anecdotal-based opinion.
The survey, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, found that 68 percent of teachers said “supportive leadership” is essential for retaining good teachers, as opposed to only 45 percent who rated higher salaries as important.
That comes as no surprise to me. Without a good principal or an enlightened central office, a school can become a lousy place to work. No teacher is going to sit in a classroom every day if the principal won’t intervene against student misbehavior in hallways or classroomsor can’t inspire a sense of meaning and progress to the work teachers do.
Conducted in conjunction with Scholastic Inc., the survey findings, Primary Sources: America’s Teachers on America’s Schools, offers some other insights into the minds of teachers:
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