Teachers and other school-based educators in Delaware will soon be able to air their grievances (and commendations) about the working conditions at their schools through an online survey, according to the Delaware News Journal.
The state is putting $80,000 of its hard-earned Race to the Top money toward the anonymous survey, which will be administered by the New Teacher Center, a Santa Cruz, Calif.-based nonprofit. Since 2002, NTC has used the survey in 12 states and 10 districts, the organization’s website notes.
The survey will be available for Delaware’s licensed school-based educators to take anytime over a two-week period starting Jan. 22. It will include questions about professional development, time, new teacher support, and school leadership. The results will be made public for all schools in which more than 50 percent of educators take the survey. According to the News Journal, “state officials say they plan to use the data to make more informed policy and funding decisions.”
In the last year, several other surveys have linked working conditions to teacher satisfaction and retention. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next year—and whether efforts to recognize and improve sub-par working conditions will make headway amidst ongoing efforts to recognize and improve (or dismiss) sub-par teachers.