What can be done to improve teacher retention in Utah?
Carly Maloney | 2024 Utah Teacher of the Year | Beaumont High School, Davis School District
We must continue the conversation about fair compensation and benefits. Many teachers have bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degrees. Many of my colleagues have master's degrees but can't afford to buy a house. Retaining teachers requires competitive benefits and wages. We also need to supplement teacher leadership and keep quality teachers in the classroom so people can lead from the classroom.
Christine Hadley | Moise College of Education Dean and Professor | Weber State University
If you look at the world's top education systems, teachers teach up to perhaps 20 hours a week, with the rest of the time devoted to teaching, shadowing, preparation, data collection, and documentation. If a teacher has to spend at least 6 and a half hours of her time with children each day, it can lead to mental health issues.
We also need to dramatically retract the idea that anyone can teach. All research shows that that's not entirely true. The most qualified teachers produce the best results for children. In fact, just one year of being under the guidance of a talented teacher can make a huge difference in a child's life. If children are exposed to less qualified teachers year after year, teachers who don't know how to teach, don't understand pedagogy, don't know how to get kids excited and motivated to learn, If so, we will be at a huge disadvantage. Being well-prepared is a big part of teacher retention, and there's a lot of data to support that.
Christine Ivory Co-Founder | Clark & Christine Ivory Foundation
All “female'' professions, such as nursing, motherhood, and teaching, have been and continue to be highly devalued, not only by men but also by women. If this group could change that, we would have done something incredible. Those professions save everyone. Family life is life. Your life has no meaning if your home life is chaotic and ridiculous. We have created a society where many parents work three jobs to put food on the table. But if parents don't educate their students, a teacher's job becomes a living nightmare. If we can promote the foster carer, it will be a step towards a solution. Parents also need to be involved in educational solutions.
Even before COVID-19, we were seeing a decline in higher education enrollment across the United States. What could be the cause? What should we do about it?
Vic Hockett | Deputy Commissioner | Talent Ready Utah, Utah System of Higher Education
We're fighting a national narrative that may not actually exist in Utah. To better understand what exists in classrooms here, we need a deeper understanding of the state context, industry partners, and parents. We are currently putting together research to determine what Utah's story really is. Some people think that our technical college is not a university, but it is. Just this morning, we were submitting a request to Congress to expand apprenticeship training. As more and more employers are interested in skills-based learning, we are creating apprenticeships in everything from technology to healthcare to diesel.
Christine Ivory Co-Founder | Clark & Christine Ivory Foundation
In conversations I've had with people from the University of Utah, they were very concerned about how critical Congress was. The challenges of higher education are [seen as] liberal. It's a very political issue right now.
Christine Wright | Program Director | Women Tech Council
College tuition costs money, but if you plan ahead, there are ways to make it work. We can learn from other states that are getting creative about college costs. Florida has a program that locks in tuition for that year if you enroll in the program the year your child is born. There are ways to be creative.
Natalie Okeson | Managing Director | Labor and Honor Foundation
Vice President, Corporate Responsibility and External Relations | Clark Capital Partners
I would like to disagree with the idea that hard skills are the only things that matter in higher education. We do ourselves a disservice by focusing only on difficult skills. Although general courses are sometimes rejected, they are very important as they develop skills that are very important in a real working environment.
Abby Cox | First Lady | Utah
Higher education has done a bad job of telling its story. Companies often say, “We can teach kids how to code.” You can't teach your child how to work in diverse groups or connect with other people with different perspectives on the team. ” To tell the right stories, higher education must promote important and lasting skills that can be taught. I would argue that these skills are just as important, if not more so.
Liz Findlay | Co-Founder | Albion Fit
I recently visited the Lassonde Institute of Entrepreneurship and was very impressed. We also have sewing machines and letterpress printing machines, so I really like how interdisciplinary it is. We need to expand our children's horizons and show them opportunities for growth and knowledge. Universities need to create spaces where students can test the waters, meet different people, and talk about different things.