We call ourselves a team, but…? Part 1 of 3

Summer is often a time to reflect on one’s leadership - and if you lead a team, you may well be thinking about its effectiveness.  Leaders share with us their concerns about their teams, and often hope that a summer retreat or a workshop will help unlock potential and improve performance. We hear things like:

“Everyone is congenial but we don’t collaborate well outside of the room”

“We just can’t seem to get off first base - we are so mired in the day to day”

“My team has weak spots - we are not all A players”

“I’m in the middle of everything - how can I get out and get my team to lead?”

“My team needs therapy”

The instinct to retreat in order to plan, build shared focus, and strengthen the team is a good one. We all need time and space away from the day to day to reflect, connect, think strategically, and improve performance. But it’s not enough. Effective teams need a clear understanding of what it means to be a team, and what they must achieve collectively. It’s sustained work and it means developing new mindsets, abilities and behaviors.

Before diagnosing problems and offering solutions on team dynamics, we start by asking leaders: 

How do you know you have a team? 

What does a high functioning team look like to you? 

What do you do when you meet together? How do you work?

In many cases, what leaders actually have is a leadership group -- a collection of direct reports with functional areas of responsibility, each of whom seeks direction and feedback from their leader.  We call this the “hub and spoke model” wherein the leader is the epicenter of the work, and most of the important decisions and direction happen in one on one meetings. The group meets regularly, largely to share information and do some short term blocking and tackling -- day to day technical work that requires coordination.  In this model it’s easy to focus on individual performers and performance and the issues of the day - and that becomes the mandate for success.

Does this sound like your team? If so, you may not actually be a team….yet. 

Allow us to offer a few guiding principles to get you started so you can practice and evolve together this fall:

Collective performance must trump individual performance in order to make progress. Set enterprise-wide goals that are primary measures of achievement and know that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Leaders value both the collective, and the unique roles of each member.

Teams thrive when each member has a valued role with clear, shared purpose. Define the team’s purpose and mandate, and identify why each member is there and what they contribute.

Trust is the foundation, but you can’t win the game without shared understanding of strategy. Trust is a core condition for success, so attend to practices that build confidence. But don’t do it in a vacuum -- do it as part of the work to understand and pursue the strategic aims of the organization.

Players need to train, and teams need to practice. Being a team is sustained, never ending work. Players need to develop their skills, and the team needs to work together and develop its capacity so it can “play” within and across the organization to achieve the goals they’ve set. The playing field, the competition, and the conditions are ever changing -- and the team needs to be both responsive and proactive in order to win. 

High functioning teams model the way and shape culture.  The best teams know one of their greatest responsibilities is to spread and scale the right mindsets, skills and behaviors throughout the organization. This takes time. Make sure your team’s purpose explicitly addresses this goal and measures enterprise wide impact. 

With these principles at the core, what next? How do you bring these principles to life? How do you start teaming? What if you don’t have the players you need?  Stay tuned: Parts Two and Three are forthcoming!

It's all okay–ChatGPT is NOT the end of writing assignments

By Cara Gallagher and the GLP Team

We’ve heard from lots of school teachers and division directors that the evolution of ChatGPT – an Artificial Intelligence-based platform that can automatically generate original content about any prompt or essay topic it’s given – is causing English and History departments to hit the panic button. In an article from The Atlantic written by English teacher Daniel Herman, the technology is a gamechanger for educators and schools. “This would be like the printing press, the steam drill, and the light bulb having a baby, and that baby having access to the entire corpus of human knowledge and understanding. My life—and the lives of thousands of other teachers and professors, tutors and administrators—is about to drastically change.” 

The implications of this technology are indeed significant for schools and universities where competition for college admissions led to a cottage industry of essay tutors and coaches, leading many to wonder for years how fair the process is. Perhaps ChatGPT will help level the playing field for socio-economically disadvantaged students. Mr. Herman, the teacher in the Atlantic article, asked it to write him a “sophisticated, emotional 600-word college-admissions essay about how my experience volunteering at my local SPCA had prepared me for the academic rigor of Stanford.” The results impressed him and would be certain to catch the attention of admissions officers at Stanford. 

So what are schools going to do if students can write an essay with ChatGPT in a matter of minutes? Initial reactions include banning the use of the website or making it almost impossible to use by requiring students to write essays by hand in-class or making every assessment oral, as this article from the New York Times discusses. Rushing to ban or create rules when the tech is already out there and in the hands of–and probably being used by–students seems futile. We also can’t help but wonder whether these reactions are pedagogically sound and good for learners. Plus they raise questions that could result in bigger problems -- are these alternatives equitable, especially for students with disabilities or those who qualify for extra time? 

No doubt, ChatGPT is disrupting education, but it’s also provoking a much-needed dialogue about an excellent question Herman posed in the article: “The question isn’t ‘How will we get around this?’ but rather ‘Is this still worth doing?’” 

The creation of ChatGPT feels like a point of inflection similar to when the calculator was mass produced. No doubt teachers believed that students who didn’t learn how to do long-division would never reach a standard of math that was widely accepted as critical to learning. And yet, the calculator proved to be an opportunity to push the limits of what was possible for teachers to teach and teenagers to learn in secondary school. ChatGPT may be a stand-in for the modern calculator, but the fact is students still need to learn how to think critically, build an argument, evaluate sources, and communicate a thesis or point of view.

What if ChatGPT isn’t a platform to ban but a teaching tool used to engage students?

One school in the Netherlands is using it to teach undergrads and grad students about original content and misinformation. A teacher at the school gave her students a debate-style assignment. Groups of students first designed and presented three of their own arguments and two counter arguments to the class without the assistance of ChatGPT. Next they fed the same assignment to ChatGPT and compared the chatbot’s answer with their own unique responses. According to the teacher, the students were amazed by how fast and eruditely the bot produced a response—until they read it with a closer eye. The response got certain facts wrong. It also attributed work to the wrong authors. The students quickly learned that, although it helped them see their original ideas and arguments in a new way, it had the potential to result in misinformation and poor scores had they relied exclusively on the bot to write their response.

Some alternative ways in which teachers use the technology in their classrooms include this article from an author who shows students the benefits of observing and studying writing in action. It could save educators time and allow them to cover more content by generating instructional texts to use for discussion on the elements of good writing. Another teacher asked her students to create outlines for a writing assignment using ChatGPT. Once they reviewed and assessed the quality of the outlines, they were asked to close their laptops and write an essay by hand. Instead of taking hours to write a quiz, one teacher used ChatGPT to generate a quiz for him. And there’s even a blog written by a teacher listing ways to use the technology in the classroom.

This feels like a “teachable moment” for educators and schools in which productive and timely solutions can be designed, in partnership with students, so that online tools can be used in ways that uphold the highest standards as well as school policies on academic honesty and acceptable use. Education Reimagined offers several ideas about ways to use technology to enhance learning experiences:

One Student at a Time/Personalization: Leverage the tool to differentiate students’ learning experiences. Have them develop personalized learning plans that enhance their strengths, while also exploring interests and curiosities. Learning targets can be pre-determined, tracked, assessed, and modified as needed by learners. They can also analyze their own learning data and design support systems/strategies for their growth areas. In other words, the learner is the curriculum, and learning is driven by agency, choice, and empowerment. 

Relationships: In a time where ChatGPT is pushing the boundaries of academic integrity, relationships could be a deterrent for learners not to engage in such activities. Inversely, when educators know their students well, they can easily identify inauthentic student work and approach it with a focus on accountability, care, and growth. The common denominator here is the strength and authenticity of relationships. 

Real World Learning: One of the most effective ways of supporting learners to develop critical skills like learning how to write and communicate on their own is through authentic real-world experiences. Transformative learning experiences can be had through internships, externships, apprenticeships, community service, service learning, leaving-to-learn expeditions, dual enrollment, and more. 

Competency-Based Education: Instead of content standards, a system that allows learners to apply what they know through new forms and situational contexts is needed—one where academic, industry, and social-emotional skills provide a learning framework for learners to curate, moderate, and evaluate their learning. Learning is measured by demonstrations of mastery versus hours spent in a classroom. This system is anchored in placing students at the center of their learning. 

Authentic Assessments: Deeper learning is not only about the acquisition of new knowledge but also in its application. Authentic assessments should align with student interest, challenge students to create something new, be multi-dimensional/interdisciplinary, extend beyond the school, have real-world implications, connect to experts in the field/topic, and be evaluated by different audiences. Learners’ work must be deeply personal, have a real impact on the world, and offer intentional opportunities for reflection. The focus is not only on the product but also on the process of learning and how they will take what they learned and apply it to their future learning experiences. 

This technology is going to pose serious challenges to those schools and educators who revere traditional methods of teaching; where writing is iterative, linear, and teacher-centered. Conversations about writing policies and the use of ChatGPT by students will spark necessary dialogues in schools about the purpose of and need to teach writing in a time when a platform can do it for you. 

We hope these discussions will push schools to leverage technology like ChatGPT and use it as an opportunity to assess what really matters – how to think critically, evaluate information, conduct research,  multiple and conflicting viewpoints at once, and  defend an opinion in fair and flexible ways beyond assigning the typical 5-page paper. 

We’ll continue to follow this unfolding conversation and update you. And we encourage you to share any interesting pieces with us!

Boards: Goal setting is an obligation and an opportunity for dialogue!

By Georgy Ann Peluchiwski

Fall for leaders, like students, is often a time of mixed emotions: renewal, excitement and trepidation. New and seasoned leaders spend summers reflecting and making plans for the coming year. They return with high expectations and optimism, energizing their teams and engaging their boards in the work ahead. With the lingering shadow of COVID, workplace, political and social tensions, the stakes feel higher than ever for leaders as they attend to the needs of students, clients, and communities they serve.

For boards and leaders, the fall ritual of coming back together often includes the annual (and sometimes dreaded) goal setting exercise. Unfortunately, we hear from schools and organizations when early excitement and hopes that “this year will be different” turn to disappointment and frustration. So what is going on?

For schools in particular, my hypothesis is that the mounting pressures on boards and leaders are creating unintended consequences for this process, and that without well constructed and agreed upon practices, miscommunication and misunderstandings result. In the whirlwind of “back to school,” the pressure to establish goals incentivizes “getting it done.”  However, slowing down to create healthy practices can turn goal setting into a platform for deeper dialogue, learning, and exploration of “the work that matters most.”

Here are a few examples of the types of questions we hear from leaders: “What does my board really want from me? I got a whole list of things written for me that are not reflective of the depth of work I need to do to make it happen. Why aren’t they talking to me about my goals? How will they evaluate my success? Why do they meet without me to discuss my goals and performance? How will they offer me feedback? What does this mean for my continued employment and compensation?” 

When we hear from boards, they too voice frustrations, such as “Why can't our leader develop good, measurable goals? How will we hold our leader accountable? We received goals, but we need metrics or a dashboard! What should we be asking/telling them to do anyway? Without metrics how can we measure progress? Who is responsible for drafting the goals? Running the evaluation? Who should weigh in?”  

Boards today are in a tough place simultaneously being told that they need to hold leadership accountable, that they are to stay out of operations, AND that they are “partners” in the work. Layer onto that increasing and often divergent perspectives and pressures from stakeholders, employees, parents, faculty, and students. The work of governance and leadership has never been more complex or more important.

Bowing to the pressure, boards can easily find themselves defaulting to drafting long lists of goals to present to their leaders and passionately advocating for discrete measurements such as program or school enrollment, fundraising, and for schools, college (or high school) placement. These are essential outcomes, but leaders have to do a lot to make these happen. The conversations seem to miss a step, and leaders can feel frustrated and misunderstood.

Historically, boards in their quest for “metrics” default quickly to easily observable and quantifiable measures like the ones I list above. The essential problem is that these are all “lagging indicators” of success. For example, by the time enrollment or fundraising decline, you are likely years away from the underlying problem and the corrections required to impact trends. You have likely overlooked the real drivers of success: a relevant and valuable mission and value proposition, and a client/student experience that is delivered with excellence and consistency.

I read with interest the recent article from RG175’s Tom Olverson, “I Hate Head of School Annual Goals: Here’s Why” as it spoke directly to the challenges outlined above and advocated for a multi-year approach – very sound advice.  I also appreciated his guidance for any leader as they navigate this process. 

Reflecting on this piece, I was left thinking about what messages we at GLP might offer to boards as most essential to avoiding the scenarios above. We offer six tips for boards and leaders looking for guidance:

1. Start by talking to each other. Sounds simple, but this is often the step we see skipped or bungled. Enter the goal setting process in a spirit of partnership and collaboration. Talk less and listen more. Goal setting should be a joint endeavor with the leader. Boards should not “present” goals to the leader, nor should leaders be drafting in a vacuum and “presenting” to the board.  Begin with a dialogue about what your shared priorities are, how that will inform the work of leadership, AND the work of governance. Boards should also be asking their leaders what they need and expect and should hold themselves accountable for delivering.

2. Define the process. This includes outlining the roles, responsibilities, and timelines for setting goals – best developed together with your leader.  If the process is clear, well defined, and well communicated, it allows the focus to be on the quality of the dialogue and reduces anxiety on all sides. Thus, high functioning boards have structures, and practices to support a healthy goal setting and evaluation process.

3. What is good for the goose…! Boards also benefit from goals, feedback, and assessment. Goals setting and evaluation processes are as essential for boards as they are for leaders and the key to continuous improvement.   

4. Ground your work in mission and strategy. Use your strategic plan, vision, mission, and values to agree to shared enterprise wide priorities. Then carefully delineate what the work of the board will be to support the work of leadership  and what work the board needs to attend to itself in order to ensure institutional progress. 

5. Measure activities that drive performance - and the success you envision! Once you have an understanding of your priorities and who will do what, consider what evidence you will seek to demonstrate progress, and how it will be measured and communicated. Know the difference between leading and lagging indicators and set realistic timeframes. Take the time to listen and learn from your leader. Ask: “what do they see as drivers or leading indicators of progress towards success?” Consider that the most valuable “metrics” might be qualitative, but can be measured or tracked.  

6. Create and sustain frequent feedback loops. Consider that informal, ongoing, and “formative” feedback is just as valuable, if not more, than a formal year-end evaluation or “summative” assessment. Be sure you are attending to both in an intentional way. This is the surest way to build a trusting and enduring partnership that drives institutional success.

We would love to hear your thoughts! Let us know what we missed, or what you would like to hear more about. 

To be or not to be…a trustee? That is the question!

By Stephanie Rogen

Of late, I’ve been thinking a lot about what a trustee is NOT. I like to affirm and encourage strengths, so this feels like an odd orientation. But I realize by defining what a trustee is NOT, I can more easily convey what a trustee IS – and perhaps help boards and individual trustees avoid serious dysfunction and realize their full potential. I’m keeping this short and sweet, and welcome comments, insights, and questions that expand my understanding and challenge me in this conversation!

Trustees are NOT Volunteers:  Yes, you are unpaid. Yes, you likely engage with the passion and dedication for the mission that a volunteer offers. But, you are no longer a volunteer in the way you may have been as a parent association officer, an event chair, or a committee participant. 

• Trustees ARE Unpaid Professional Talent: While you may offer yourself as a volunteer in particular contexts, in the boardroom you are an unpaid governance professional with professional expertise and professional responsibility for the institution. 

Trustees are NOT Representatives or Delegates:  Whether you are publicly elected, or nominated within a private school or not for profit board process, once you accept the role you immediately take on enterprise-wide responsibility. You are NOT a representative for a certain population or stakeholder group (like an elected congressman), nor are you on the Board to defend or protect particular interests. 

• Trustees ARE Guardians of the Enterprise, its Mission, and its Core Values: Trustees defend the institution’s interests, holding in the balance both the economic and social welfare of the organization and its members. Trustees play a long game and consider the needs of future generations as they deliver on relevance and value in the present. This can be lonely work, especially if you serve as a trustee or board member within a tight community where you enjoy strong personal and social connections.

Trustees are NOT Investigators: It can be very tempting to pursue deeper research into a reported problem, a troubling anecdote, or a concern voiced to you by an employee or community member.  This is NOT your job. Report the issue to your leader and to your board leadership –  but save the fact finding for a more intentional, board/leadership driven process. Anything else puts you at risk for violating your duty of care, your duty of loyalty, and your role as “Guardian of the Enterprise.”

• Trustees ARE Pattern Detectors and Dilemma Mediators:  When concerns arise about organizational performance, culture, or talent, trustees can ask good questions. Are we seeing a pattern? What do we know, and what do we NOT know? How can we work with leadership to understand and resolve a problem, if it exists? How do we message and support predictability, consistency, and responsibility within our community? And how do we help our leaders reconcile tensions and address dilemmas where we must tolerate losses and trade-offs together? This is the work of the Board.

What did I miss? What else would you offer as a “NOT” for defining the role of a trustee?

Everybody Learns, Everybody Teaches -- Inspirations for Back to School

By Sarah Goldin, Ph.D., Partner and Director of Qualitative Research

It’s that time of year again!  It’s August and “Back to School” is in full effect.

I’ve been reflecting over the past week on all the “new” that a new school year brings.  The nervous excitement and anticipation of:

• New relationships and collaborations with and between students, faculty/staff and school leadership

• New priorities and initiatives for learning design, curriculum, program, pedagogy, and assessment

• New challenges posed by new conditions -- both internal and external

All the “new” is enough to daunt even the most seasoned of educators!  

So how to make sense of it all?  How might school leadership, faculty/staff, and students collectively organize around a shared “North Star” that brings all of the important and urgent work of schools together under a cohesive and more manageable throughline?    

I was thinking all these thoughts when the podcast and article “Apprenticeship Gets a Makeover” (McKinsey & Company, July 28, 2022) came into my inbox.  Although written for/from a business perspective, the insights therein immediately resonated, suggesting a powerful approach – with supporting and specific tactics/skills – to help make all of the complicated work of schools feel both simpler and more integrated. 

So here’s my “Back to School” wondering and challenge:  

What if we reframed our understanding of ALL that schools do – and every relationship through which work gets done – as a powerful apprenticeship opportunity through which “everybody learns and everybody teaches”?  

For example, professional development, priorities/goals, and reflection/evaluation processes for instructional faculty could adopt an apprenticeship stance – forging collaborative teams of teachers who learn with and from each other through peer-to-peer modeling, coaching, iteration, and reflection.  At the same time, instructional faculty across all grades and subject areas could emphasize the same approaches in learning design – curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment – with their students.  Similar peer-to-peer apprenticeship could support leadership teams in making coordinated progress across school-wide priorities and initiatives.        

If we collectively commit to the mindset that every task and relationship is an opportunity to “learn by doing” -- through the intentional and consistent practice of modeling, scaffolding, coaching, fading, and reflection -- we promote positive and collaborative culture, and create conditions for more powerful learning by both students and adults. 

For more about apprenticeship frameworks and how they can be leveraged to foster a culture of continuous learning, see also:

• “What Is Cognitive Apprenticeship And How Does it Make Thinking Visible?” (Tomsett, John.  Teaching Times. 2021

• “Reviving the art of apprenticeship to unlock continuous skill development” (McKinsey & Company, October 21, 2021)

• “Cognitive Apprenticeship in Classroom Instruction: Implications for Industrial and Technical Teacher Education” (Duncan, Sarah.  JITE v33n3. 1996)

Part 2: Not Enough Teachers? What Schools Need to Know

By Cara Gallagher, Director of Thought Leadership, and Stephanie Rogen, Principal & Founder

Part one of this blog examined early data about the teacher talent supply and how we might better understand whether there is a shortage. Part two continues the conversation with guidance and further data that answer these essential questions: 

• Do you have a teacher retention problem? Use internal data to define the problem, and understand and address the needs of your talent.

• How do you attract, protect, and develop your talent? Support and protect your talent by investing in their growth.

Do you have a teacher retention problem?

Data matters; your data matters more: Schools need to collect their own internal data to reconcile findings at national levels with what is happening on the ground. You need your own data to help you a) separate the signal from the noise and b) understand more deeply what sustains or challenges a healthy talent pool in your school. Remember, context matters and comparisons to other schools don’t tell the whole story. National data can sometimes exclude critical factors such as school affiliation (public, private, parochial), size, grade levels taught (K-8, K-12, 9-12), region, and boarding and/or day status. Moreover, culture is not accounted for in big data sets. A better and more comprehensive story can be told by comparing longitudinal data that tracks internal trends backwards over the last five years, i.e. data before, during, and (hopefully) after COVID, coupled with a frank assessment of your school’s culture and how it values and supports talent.

To do this, you need to collect and use internal data to inform your talent strategy. Without adequate data, anecdotes and perceptions tend to rule the day and fuel anxiety and misguided conclusions. Let your data replace anecdotes, assumptions, and feelings with facts, forecasts, and invitations for employees to see and talk about what’s really going on inside the organization.

Work with your senior leadership team to gather data to answer these critical questions:

1. What is your retention rate this year? How does it compare to your retention rates in the years prior to COVID? 

2. How can you contextualize your data to uncover what percent of exits were planned (retirements, elimination of a role, etc.) versus unplanned attrition?

3. What themes and patterns can you lift up from your exit interviews to better understand the factors causing teachers to quit unexpectedly?

4. How do those factors relate to what you can control in your school versus what is a reflection of larger, macro trends?

Data can tell you a lot about whether your retention and attrition rates are outpacing national rates and what’s happening that’s specific to your school. The next and perhaps most important conversation uses that data to inform your approach to recruitment, development, and retention - and to help ensure you align that approach to the needs of students as well as adults. 

It’s not easy: Effective hiring, onboarding, professional development and retention strategies are hard to come by and require significant investment of time, talent, and dollars. Investing now is a critical risk mitigant. We protect our assets by purchasing insurance, guarding our budgets and endowments, and maintaining, renovating and expanding our physical plants. And yet when it comes to schools protecting their greatest asset – their talent – we’d argue many schools do not invest in the people they have. They overinvest in search and underinvest in development. Ensuring a strong pipeline of talent, and ensuring you retain and develop great teachers and teacher leaders are expensive, time consuming processes. Retaining valuable talent needs to be a priority to maintain consistency in the student experience and to ensure effective mentorship, coaching, collaboration, effective teamwork, and a culture where everyone learns and grows. 

So we know why talent matters, and now you’ve evaluated your internal data. Maybe things are stable – Congratulations! But, maybe you see seeds of a retention problem or uncover more serious problems. Why is it happening and what do you do about it?

Is burnout your problem? To some, the word “burnout” has become a noisy and potentially misunderstood, and easy concept to explain “The Great Resignation.” In truth, burnout is a multifaceted condition that may or may not be linked to any number of factors in a particular school —although the pandemic has been a profound accelerant. To this point, in a January 2022 survey of National Education Association members, 90% of the respondents said that feeling burned out is a serious problem, and the causes of burnout may be directly linked to consequences and burdens of COVID-19: 

Is burnout the only problem? If so, is it temporary? Protecting your talent by supporting them so they come out of two very difficult COVID years stronger, restored, and more secure is first order work for all schools, but don’t jump to the assumption that burnout is either the sole cause or the at the root of what might be driving turnover in your organization. Most talent challenges are multi-faceted - and quit rates or issues with recruitment are often lagging indicators that point to complex issues. 

How do you attract, protect, and develop your talent?

Align to your values: Adults join organizations because they see (or hope for) alignment between their personal values and the values of the institution.  Clarity about what professional standards and expectations, using commonly understood terms to describe work at your school, goes a long way towards an aligned faculty and staff. For example, consider the ubiquitous worries about burnout: Defining terms and building shared language around what people think burnout is and is not are good ways to learn more about personal experiences, build empathy, and come to an agreement about expectations for your school. Consider using Dr. J Eric Gentry’s research and books on compassion fatigue and burnout. According to Dr. Gentry, burnout is often a symptom of one’s inability to de-identify oneself from one’s work. Those who work in education tend to be more susceptible to burnout given the caregiving, nurturing, and highly relational nature of the work. 

Lead with listening: Seasoned talent strategies often begin with deliberate and deep listening campaigns. Set aside time during an all-school meeting with faculty and staff to share their reactions to your internal data analyses to see what if anything resonates with them personally. Share the language of professional expectations, work equity, and work/life balance and invite employees to make sense, offer productive solutions, and expand leadership knowledge of the issues. 

Be intentional: An effective talent development  strategy takes work and calls for an understanding of what your talent needs and values, thoughtful design, and careful, and actionable solutions to underlying challenges. A culture that supports, develops, and recognizes talent will grow your teachers, nurture leaders, prevent attrition, and attract external candidates.

Create the culture students need and teachers want: Some interesting research has emerged from MIT Sloan School of Management that indicates money is no longer the sole factor that keeps people in their jobs – not surprisingly, people also seek recognition, connection, and culture. To this point, researchers Dr. Don Sull and Charlie Sull (Father-Son team) found that the best predictor of attrition was the degree of “toxicity” present in the culture of the organization or company. 

This is particularly true for Millennial and Gen Z employees. In their evaluations of thousands of company comments on Glassdoor, the Sulls found the following as the leading causes of toxicity:

• Identity exclusion

• Disrespect

• Unethical behaviors

• Low integrity

• Cutthroat environment

• Abusive management 

An adult culture where these conditions are present model and manifest conditions that are in direct opposition to what young people need to learn and thrive. Leaders who ensure that a healthy adult culture, in service of supporting students, can engage faculty and staff in reasonable and mission-aligned solutions. Schools that demonstrate a commitment to healthy culture and higher retention rates also foster change-ready environments that can adapt to and manage challenges, transitions, or crises. 

Invest, Invest, Invest! People are more likely to stay in a job when their employers support their wellbeing, care about them as human beings, compensate them fairly, and create conditions for inclusion. But that’s not enough. New research continues to confirm what we already know: to develop, attract, and retain talent, you must invest in their growth and development. According to Udemy Business 2022 Workplace Learning Trends Report, “Investing in workforce development facilitates employee productivity, keeps employees engaged and satisfied in their work, boosts employee retention, and supports the innovation needed to grow revenue.” Offering opportunities to upskill or reskill signals recognition to your talent and proves you are invested in supporting and advancing their careers.

At GLP, we observe many schools that underinvest in mission aligned talent and talent development relative to other priorities. Examination of budgets is an easy and illuminating way to ask: Are we prioritizing talent as a mission critical asset? Are we putting our money where our mouth is? Investing in developing a talent strategy, and then executing it powerfully, will be a defining characteristic of high performing schools and exceptional student outcomes. Make sure your board of trustees includes members with talent development expertise — who can help create and innovate staffing strategies, policies, and systems that support your objectives. Finally, know that data matters — and before you compare yourself to others, understand what’s happening in your school. 

We hope this post offers some concrete and immediate next steps to identify and learn more about why your talent may be leaving and what to do to mitigate attrition. We’d love to know more about what’s working in your school!

Not Enough Teachers? What Schools Need to Know (Part I)

By Cara Gallagher, Director of Thought Leadership, Associate Director of Qualitative Research, Consultant

Are we Facing a Teaching Talent Crisis? GLP weighs in on the national dialogue.

Last summer was the first time this question came on my radar. Someone forwarded me a Twitter post about a group on Facebook called “Leave Teaching…And Smile :-).” Curious, I discovered that not only did it exist, it had over ten thousand members (it currently has 14,000). A quick search of the word “teaching” in the groups section of Facebook surfaced at least five whose sole charge is to help teachers leave the field. One group called “Life After Teaching - Exit the Classroom and Thrive” has 81,000 members and functions both as a one-stop shop where burnt out teachers can get emotional support, peruse jobs posted by other members, and connect with transitional career counselors and resumé coaches. 

This trend is not unique to primary and secondary education. Academics in higher education are feeling the same strains and taking their frustrations to Facebook. One group called “The Professor Is Out” – created only a year ago and already has 24,000+ members – was created to help tenured professors leave higher education. Subreddit group r/Professors has 100,000 members and offers “a place for professors to BS with each other, share professional concerns, get advice and encouragement, vent (oh, especially that), and share memes.”

Teachers Leaving is not a “New” Problem

What strikes me is that most of these groups were created before the pandemic. Interestingly, many were formed in 2018 or 2019, immediately before Covid started. This certainly challenges the prevailing narrative that Covid caused teachers to flee classrooms for different careers. While the formation of these Facebook groups may have begun before the pandemic, it’s fair to assume burnout and job fatigue were underlying conditions that Covid may have worsened at an accelerated rate.

So our answer to the question about whether or not we have a talent crisis is “Yes, and no.”

Context… a Slow Burn, and Conflicting Data

The teacher shortage is more than a decade in the making: Remember that the field historically has always had a higher turnover rate than others. Thirty percent of educators leave the field within 6 years of entering it. After secretaries, childcare workers, paralegals, and correctional officers, teachers have the fifth highest turnover rate by occupation. 

In November, the Wall Street Journal published an article about quit rates across different sectors. One data point that was particularly troubling was that “quits in the education sector—which accounts for a larger share of employment in Northeastern states than many others—have risen at the fastest pace of any industry since January (2021).” In May of 2021, the National Department of Labor reported public education employment dropped to levels not seen since August of 2000. 

These two points, combined with a reality that the pipeline of teachers entering education training programs has been in a steady decline since 2010, raise some concerns; however, what they don’t take into consideration is the degree to which Covid has adversely impacted the teacher workforce. 

New research gives us a glimpse of how Covid may be disrupting both the current and future teacher labor market. According to American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) member surveys, in 2021 and 2022 about 20% of institutions reported a decline in new undergraduate enrollment of 11% or more; 19% of undergraduate-level and 11% of graduate-level teaching programs saw a significant drop in enrollment this year. Additionally, in February, the NEA published an alarming report that “55 percent of educators are thinking about leaving the profession earlier than they had planned.” This is an 18% jump from when teachers were asked about their likelihood of leaving last August and takes into account factors such as their age, years of service, proximity to retirement, role at the school and impact on children. 

But talking about leaving is not the same as leaving: Chad Aldeman, a researcher at Georgetown’s Edunomics Lab who studies public education policy and the teacher labor market, recently found “the [teacher] quit rate has held at lower or average rates during the pandemic. But here’s the thing, openings are way outpacing hiring right now, and that’s partially thanks to the big infusion of federal funding that’s created the opportunity to hire more people, and that’s leading to a higher vacancy rate.” Aldeman also points out “voluntary ‘quit’ rates were slightly above the 20-year average, while ‘total separations’ that include quits, layoffs and retirements were slightly below average. State-level data for teachers shows that turnover has remained on par with long-term historical trends.” With that said, Alderman is cautiously optimistic. “The story of next year has yet to be told,” he said.

To compare public school data with independent and private schools, NAIS Career Center looked at monthly job postings before and during the pandemic to see what if any impact Covid had. “Because of the traditional contract renewal schedule, the peak job posting activity usually occurs in March and April. If we consider 2019 as a representative pre-pandemic year and compare the job postings to 2021, we see that, after a delayed start, the number of jobs posted were consistently and significantly higher than the pre-pandemic patterns. Even more troubling is what we are seeing for this year. The number of job postings in 2022 is even higher. Overall, the number of new jobs posted to the Career Center in the first three months of 2022 is 59% higher than in 2021.”

According to NAIS, “clearly the fact that the number of job postings is so high relative to historical data is an indicator that schools are facing hiring pain.”

Another troubling data point is that there was a 12% decline in the number of job seekers looking at openings posted to NAIS job center database. 

Conditions, Perceptions, and the Problem 

When the data conflict, we are left with no conclusions and the news cycle coupled with anecdotal observations fill the vacuum. And as we know: Perception is one version of reality. 

But if it feels like teachers are fleeing schools as part of this phenomenon we’re calling “The Great Resignation,” there’s probably some truth to that. The reality is that teachers – like everyone else during the pandemic – took stock and reevaluated their lives, jobs, and futures. They looked around and saw school boards shouting over what they could and couldn’t teach, how to be healthy and safe, and whether or not they were “essential”. Teachers switched up their lesson plans for in-person, hybrid, and/or online learning on a moment’s notice and endured an endless stream of thundering emails, opinions, and national debates about whether or not kids should stay home, learn online, go back in person, and wear a mask. As these challenges continued through the end of the 2020 school year and settled into the next two years, so did symptoms like fatigue and burnout. 

Some educators realized they wanted the same freedoms afforded to those who worked from home since the start of the pandemic. The decreased responsibilities and an ability to find more separation or balance in their personal lives and their jobs appealed to them. As one member of the Facebook group “The Professor Is Out” put it, “The pandemic really exposed the cracks in the foundation and made people realize that this is not a healthy way to live. And I think that that was a wake-up call, sort of across the entire industry, that there's other options out there.”

The exact percentage of teachers that have left the field due to these “pull” factors might not be possible to gather data on for a while. It hasn’t been long enough to collect data and draw any concrete conclusions. With that said, can schools afford to wait to find out if this is or isn’t going to be a mild headache versus a full blown crisis? 

No, they can’t. The simple truth is that if educators are leaving the field and the pool of applicants is eroding, you have to take steps immediately to 1) understand the problem within your school or system and 2) develop fresh approaches to how you recruit and retain your current talent. 

Stay tuned! We’ll offer some concrete suggestions in our next blog and welcome your comments and insights as we finalize the next post.

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