Here's Where It Gets Interesting - The Teachers with Alexandra Robbins

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Sharon’s guest on today’s episode on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting is author Alexandra Robbins, the author of several New York Times bestsellers. Her newest book, The Teachers, goes behind the scenes to show readers what life is like for teachers in America. She follows three teachers through their trials and triumphs over the course of one school year. Learn about their challenges with being under-resourced and over-scrutinized while they try to make connections and safe learning environments in their classrooms. Special thanks to our guest, Alexandra Robbins, for joining us today. Order your copy of The Teachers here. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Guest: Alexandra Robbins Executive Producer: Heather Jackson Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. Thank you for joining me today. I read a book that I think you need to read too, and so I invited the author on to talk about it. Weird. Weird how I did that. Today I'm chatting with Alexandra Robbins, who has written a book called The Teachers, and it is a peek behind the scenes of what life is like for teachers in America. She is a fantastic writer. I think you're going to absolutely love reading this book. It's really fast-paced. It reads like a fiction book, but it's not. The subtitle is A Year Inside America's Most Vulnerable Important Profession, and I think you're going to find this conversation very eye-opening. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting.

People who have been listening to my show for a long time know that I am a long-time teacher, and that is one of the reasons I am really, really excited to be chatting today. So thank you so much for being here, Alexandra. Thank you for having me. I read your book, The Teachers, with great interest. And I want you to first of all set the stage for people who have not yet read it. What is the premise of the book? And tell me more about how you conceived of this project. Well, I wanted to write a book that would open the public's eyes, kind of a wake-up call to show readers what being a teacher is really like. And in order for them to want to read it, I figured I had to write a fast-paced, fun-to-read, sort of fiction-style book in order for the public not only to understand from the teacher's perspective what's going on inside schools, but also to have characters they could root for and fall in love with and care about as they turn the pages.

over the course of a school year, Penny, a math teacher in the South, Miguel, a special education teacher out West, and Rebecca, an East Coast elementary school teacher, so that people can sort of really get lost in their sort of fascinating behind the scenes sort of relatable stories and secrets and understand the perspective of school from the teacher's point of view. And I also interviewed hundreds of teachers across the country to find out what's really going on in schools and what the public needs to know. It's so important for a variety of reasons, right? Like you've written about other important professions, you've written about nurses, and it seems like you have a penchant for wanting to write sort of like behind the scenes, like here's what you don't know about the secret life of sororities or the secret life of driven kids.

It seems like you're curious about what people are like, not in their public facing lives, but more in private. Yeah. And I think my goal, I mean, it's always been so from the beginning, but it's really evolved to hone in on this at this point in my career is I want to help amplify voices that are not always listened to in the way they should be heard. I love that. Okay. So we all know that education in many ways is in crisis in the United States. I have many teachers in my community and that's almost universally what I hear. I don't hear from hardly anyone who was like, things are going great. I feel confident. I feel supported. I don't feel stressed out or burned out. Things are going great. Is that the sentiment that you heard when you conducted all of these interviews? Yeah. And people who are not in the know say, oh, well, yeah, the pandemic changed

things for everybody. But it's important to make the point that the educational landscape was in crisis before the pandemic even began. And so what we saw was the pandemic sort of exposed the problems to a greater extent and exacerbated issues that were already urgent and that are now in crisis. So you can't blame the pandemic, but because of higher tensions and the politics of it, it's a very different atmosphere now than it was 20 or 30 years ago. I absolutely agree with that. I love how the book is divided up into the school year. It starts in August. And I want to hear, first of all, why teachers say that they stay in education. What is it that is driving teachers, despite all of these overwhelming odds that we're about to talk more about, what makes them show up every day? talk more about, what makes them show up every day? They stay because the joy of the good moments gets them through the tough times. They stay because the meaningfulness and the reward and inspiration they get from the relationships they build with students, with classes, and with colleagues are enough to keep them going despite all the obstacles, despite the rampant disrespect,

despite the woefully inadequate pay. It's the feeling that you get when you, for example, see a student's aha moment as they grasp a new concept or connection, or the feeling you get when things are just gelling once you get past the beginning part of the year and your classroom feels like it's this little family and you've got your own family dynamics and it's just this little magical space for you. And, you know, as a Washington, D.C. teacher said, teachers make the best colleagues because they're good at relationships and they know how to show up. A teacher told me a story. Seven months into working at a new school, she was hospitalized

and a couple of her co-workers came to visit her, just coincidentally at the same time as like an old college friend or something came to visit her. And after the teachers left, the college friend expressed amazement that these teachers who had just known their colleague for, you know, just a few months showed up, brought stuff, were there for her. And just, it just seemed like a really solid friendship. And she said to him, well, that's not actually that surprising to me because I've made lifelong friendships at every school I've ever worked at. It seems like there are a few different categories or buckets, buckets, if you will, of challenges that teachers are facing today in numbers and in size that have only grown over time. And these are some of the challenges as I see it. You feel free

to tell me if your research says otherwise, or if you want to add anything to this. One of the challenges is being under-resourced. That includes underpaid, but also the school buildings themselves, like the facilities, and then also the resources that students come with when we're asking them to bring supplies and they don't have what they need. Schools are not providing that. Teachers are. Being under-resourced, and I might even add in under-resourced when it comes to available time, like the amount of time teachers are contracted to be at the building. There's absolutely no way,

and I'm sure you heard this from people, there's no way to complete your work during the amount of time that you're paid for. It's impossible. It's absolutely impossible. If somebody tried to do that, they would be regarded as the worst teacher in the building. They would just be photocopying other old worksheets and things of that nature and then never grading any papers, not giving student feedback, etc. There's no way to be an effective teacher in the time allotted. So being under-resourced is a big problem. And then I would also put in another column of parent issues. Aggressive parents, parents who are disrespectful to you, parents who make your life challenging as a teacher either directly, like with direct conflict, or by trying to get you in trouble with administration or things of that nature.

And I would also add in there some of the more recent developments with parents trying to do things like ban books and not agreeing with resources you have in your classroom. And then I'd also put one of the challenges as student behavior. Student behavior is a huge challenge, especially in like the secondary schools where student behavior is far more than just like, stop messing with her lunch, stop touching her pencils. And I'm not minimizing student behavior in elementary school, but student behavior issues can have very, very big legal consequences even in secondary schools. Safety issues, big safety issues in the upper grades. And then maybe you'd have another column of things like bureaucratic problems, problems with administration at both the district and the school level. Do I have the columns mapped out? Am I missing any columns? Do you want to add or take away anything that I've sort of laid out there? I think you just outlined a book that you can write.

That was really well done. I think the things I'd add are, everything you said is exactly right. Under resourced column, I'd add inadequate numbers of support staff. Yes. Because that is a big deal. And that's paraeducators in the classroom. That's behavioral specialists for special education students. That's guidance counselors and social workers. I think there should be a full-time nurse in every school. Teachers are having to do all of these extra things that they were not trained for and don't have time for and aren't paid for because there's not enough support staff. And I think probably overall workplace safety could be its own buckets. And under that, again, we have if a

special education classroom like Miguel's, Miguel was one of the teachers I followed for a year, his school district kept dumping more and more kids with extreme special needs into his classroom and refusing to supply the aids and assistance that he needed. And that turned out to be dangerous for him. And we can talk about that later. And I'd also put in that category, there's not a lot of recourse for teachers when there's violence from students. And often that's, you know, in the special education classroom, sometimes that's just kids who don't have impulse control or they have communications issues. It's not that their fault, it's that kids who don't have impulse control or they have communications issues. It's not that their fault is that the district isn't supplying the proper resources

and support staff to help manage them. I'd also put in the overall workplace safety category principal bullying. Teachers don't have any recourse when they are working under a toxic supervisor who can make their day hell by even just giving them extra duties or transferring their subject or their grade level at the last minute just to be either retaliatory or just because they don't like them. There's no recourse for educators who are dealing with that. And I think those are the two things I would add to your list. Great, great points. Let's talk a little bit about this sort of first category of being under-resourced. I mean, everybody knows there's, like, it's an old adage that

teachers are underpaid. It, you know, stems all the way back to the fact this is a traditionally female workplace, a female work environment. There wasn't this sense from these communities that this is a super professional job. And you need the highest possible levels of training and we're going to pay you a ton of money. So from the very beginning, that has been some of the public's attitude about what teachers deserve. But now teaching is a very professional job. By and large, you need a graduate degree to be able to even get hired. So we have required an increasing amount of training and we expect more and more and more

and more, but we are not dedicating adequate public resources to it. And I'd love to hear more about what teachers told you about this topic. Well, first of all, when it comes to teacher paychecks, I think it's important for listeners to understand that yes, teachers deserve far more money than they get. But also studies show that students math and English scores are significantly higher in districts that pay teachers higher base salaries. So it's not just the old, oh yeah, they want more money. They're not making enough money to support themselves as teachers and to have things taken care of in their life so they can devote as much time as they would want to

to their students. But also teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions. So the good things that happen to teachers will mean better things happen for students. It's a great way of saying that, that teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions. And I've said it in a different way, you know, something along the lines of, if you care about kids, you have to care about teachers, because there's no extricating one from the other. Who do you think is working in the buildings? You need people to work there and you need good people to work there. And if we create such toxic work conditions from a variety of ways, the numbers now show this

pretty large exodus from the education profession. And we were under training the number of teachers we need as it is. And so now we are exacerbating the student learning conditions. Even if you don't care about teachers, even if you're like, well, just leave and get a different job. Even if that is your perspective, you should care at a minimum about student learning conditions. That's a fantastic point that when we're under-resourcing teachers, we're under-resourcing children. I want to hear more about the stories that you were told about parent aggression and the culture of teacher blaming.

So here's a story that kind of captures the whole essence of this for me. It's a true story. One day after school, a Pennsylvania high school English teacher was walking to her car in the school parking lot when a Mercedes rolled right into her. but the parent driver still on her cell phone lowered her window and yelled, stop touching my car. So for me, I know it's one of those funny not funny stories, right? So for me, that incident really perfectly illustrates this culture of teacher blaming in which entitled parents are making outrageous demands and then blaming teachers for not meeting them. They are driving their car into a teacher and then blaming the teacher for touching it. They expect teachers to solve all of society's problems, all of their own problems, and then they fault them when it's impossible because teachers aren't even given the necessary resources for the academic part of the job,

let alone everything else the public seems to want them to do. What is happening to teachers as a result of some, certainly not all, of course, there are plenty of wonderful parents who really go out of their way to help teachers have a more positive experience in a school, of course, We're not talking about every parent. But what is the fallout from that? What happens when events like this occur and they occur far too often, if not in that specific format, but in another one where it's like, stop touching my car. And the teacher's like, excuse me, you just hit me with your car. What does that mean for teachers?

I mean, it's demoralizing and it's disheartening because, you know, we have to remember teachers are doing all of the monumental things they do for other people's children. And so to be treated that way by the children's actual parents or guardians, it's baffling. And, you know, in some cases, parents are resorting to aggression. They're sending super nasty emails, especially during the pandemic when it started to get political. Some parents were physically violent with teachers. They say things to teachers that they wouldn't say to people in any other profession. Like if you go to the grocery store and you don't like the feel of, I don't know, like say there's a mushy

cantaloupe, you're not going to go yell at the produce guy. You're not going to, you know, slap him. You're not going to say, I pay taxes, so therefore you work for me, which is what a lot of teachers hear from certain parents. Just the things that parents think they can say to teachers is kind of appalling. It truly is. The mentality of you work for me, it makes me want to launch into an entire workshop about the difference between a public employee and your personal employee, they're not the same thing. Your personal employee is, I own this shop, I hire you, you work when I say you're going to work, you work for me. That's not the same thing as a public employee. It's truly one of my pet peeves,

you work for me. Yes, it is true that tax dollars support these schools. That does not mean, him, as he was giving his lectures, simultaneously to take handwritten notes in her daughter's notebook for the student. And she told, true story, and she told the teacher, I've made my expectations clear with the principal. Oh my goodness. It's just mind boggling. Who told these people, Alexandra? Who told them that they have the right to expect that?

Where does that even come from? I don't know if you even know the answer to that, but it's one of the questions that I have wrestled with many times. Where did you get the idea that that's what is acceptable? I think there's sort of a group polarization thing going on on social media because teachers told me that the attitudes from parents are very different now than they were in, for example, the 1990s. Kids who grew up in the 1990s, they were taught to respect their teachers and parents seemed to largely follow that. Then came social media and parents, I think it's two pronged. One is parents had online access to teachers and to grades 24-7. So they feel this sense of immediacy and this sense of urgency and this sense that they should somehow be instantly gratified. I think also the high-stakes testing culture that began in the early 2000s

changed things for teachers because suddenly the focus was more on teachers than it was on schools. Teachers' paychecks and their jobs, because of No Child Left Behind, could hinge on how their students happened to do on one specific test on a random day, and it didn't matter if, you know, a student had trauma at home or was homeless or had a stomach ache that day or had parents who weren't involved or who just wasn't well fed. And so they may not do as well on a test as they otherwise could. Didn't matter. Teachers were judged based on their students' scores. And that led to a climate of fear and competition among teachers in many cases, but also among

parents. And parents saw that the government was penalizing teachers when it came to student scores. So I think that may have begun the mindset shift for parents who started to blame teachers instead of the government or instead of school systems and district officials. That's just my theory. Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. Totally. And suddenly parents had a vehicle to express frustration or to ask, is it normal that my 11th grader has calculus homework in the evening? And then they could get a ton of feedback immediately like, oh my gosh, homework is so toxic. Absolutely not. Just tell the teacher

now that you won't be doing the homework. They could get that kind of immediate feedback. Exactly. They feed off each other. Yes. Yes. And then it becomes this perpetuating cycle where you got feedback last time, I'm going to ask again next time. And then your friend saw that, oh, Sharon got feedback. I'm going to ask on Facebook about this, that, and the other thing. I think that's a great point. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey.

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and wherever you get your podcasts. One of the frustrations I hear from teachers, and I would love to hear your take on this as well, is that teachers are expected to completely make up for any and all deficiencies a child may have in their home life, any and all deficiencies a child may have in their home life, any and all deficiencies a child may have in their previous knowledge, so their knowledge gaps, you need to completely bridge those. If your child arrives to the 10th grade reading at a fifth grade level and you are a math

teacher, well, it's still your job to help them read better. math teacher, well, it's still your job to help them read better. It's this sort of Herculean hero complex that you need to make up for everything the child does not have or know. And if you can't do that, if you cannot literally lay yourself on the railroad tracks and invest a million dollars into making up for this child's previous life challenges, then you too can be in danger of being labeled a failing teacher. Yeah, 100%. In fact, that reminds me of a story of a Kansas high school special education teacher who ended up believing, she said, I love the kids, but I just can't take the adults anymore.

And one of the best examples she had of that was parents who demanded at the beginning of the year that they get their senior students up to grade level reading. And he began his senior year of high school, again, as a special ed, at a kindergarten level. And somehow the parents expected her to make up for 12 years of deficiencies and special needs and challenges that some of which can't be addressed in a year, let alone 12. And they were angry with her for not being able to do so. And it's important for people to understand that one teacher is going to have some ESL students, they're going to have some

very high achieving students, they're going to have some kids who are experiencing some sort of trauma. They're going to have some kids with learning disabilities, some kids who are way below grade level. And it's not a, you know, it's not an English class, but they read far below the grade level. So that's going to affect how they do. And to have to be able to differentiate learning for those students in classes that are getting bigger and bigger because we're losing teachers and there aren't the support staff to help, it gets more and more difficult for teachers.

It is very difficult to differentiate under the best of conditions for all of those different groups. But then when you add in the high stakes testing and then the best of conditions for all of those different groups. But then when you add in the high stakes testing and then the labels of like, this is a failing teacher versus not a failing teacher, it really does mess with your confidence as an educator. You end up feeling like, is this even the right job for me? I don't even know if I'm cut out for this. When in reality, many of these educators are actually extremely effective in the classroom. But the external pressures are such that they never feel that way. Like a surgeon can close up an incision, look at the vitals, track that patient's progress and be like,

this was a good outcome and feel like I am a good surgeon. There is a metric by which they can feel like that was successful. I am being successful. I am a good surgeon. And everyone agrees with them, right? The hospital is like, yes, that patient had a good outcome. The nurses say that patient had a good outcome. The patient may feel like, yes, I had a good outcome. Now, I'm not saying there's no issues in healthcare. You've written a whole nother book on that. And there are a lot of issues in healthcare. But you take my point that a surgeon can judge themselves as successful. And the external metrics also say successful. That was a successful, like they were not readmitted to the hospital. Great. That was a good procedure. That is not the case by and large with almost any teachers.

Almost no teachers have this external validation of like, you are doing it right. This is what I hear all of the time. Yes. But at the same time, teachers can see, it's just that they're not judged on it and it's not publicized and it's not something that they're praised for, teachers can see the individual progress they make with each and every student on their own metrics. I want to read a quote, if it's okay, from an Oregon high school teacher. She said, I see the difference I make in just one year for my students. Imagine classrooms around the country filled with teachers who have support. With the right support, I can help every student I see, and I know most teachers feel the same. But, she said, my hands are tied. I watch kids I know could be saved drop out, commit petty crimes, use drugs, and make bad choices. She said, we could

fundamentally change the lives of millions of children, but we're simply too overwhelmed to meet their needs in the way we know we should. And I think it really speaks to teachers' care. They have the inner drive. They have the heart and the compassion to improve the lives of every single student in their class, and that's what they want to do. But they're not being given the resources and support from school districts to be able to do what they need to do. I hear a lot from teachers that student behavior issues have just skyrocketed and they feel really, really challenged to do anything about it. really, really challenged to do anything about it. Good teachers are effective classroom managers, and there's a lot of low-level behaviors that teachers absolutely can and should be dealing with in their own classrooms. But when you read news stories about a six-year-old literally shooting their teacher in the classroom, and of, that's an extreme example. Most teachers are not

being shot by their first grade students. But behavior issues that disrupt the learning environment to the extent that other children are being deprived of learning opportunities, and the teacher is really not able to successfully deal with that student behavior problem. I'm hearing so much that that is, I don't know if I can keep doing this. I don't know if I can keep doing this. What did you hear from teachers? The same thing you're hearing. Students are much more disruptive now than they were before the pandemic. And as you know, just one disruptive student can affect an entire class. So I'm a substitute teacher. And if I have a class where there's one student, and this happened, who started upturning desks and taking things from

other students' desks, just sort of swiping all the things out of the desk, this was a second grade class, and I don't have help in the classroom, that messes with the learning environment for all the students in the classroom. It completely does. And it's very, very challenging. And then here's the thing that I hear all the time. Student behavior gets to the point where it is so disruptive and in some cases dangerous that the student needs to be removed from the classroom. They're sent down to the office because we've created the situation under which it is the administration's job to deal with the severe student behavior issues so that teachers can remain in the classroom. And what I hear over and over is that the student then just comes right back to class

with nothing happened. They didn't go anywhere. There was no punishment. There was no attempt made to rectify the situation. And the students, of course, students who are chronic behavior problems, they know this. And it becomes this like perpetuating cycle of like, oh no, he's here today. And you know that he's going to immediately start disrupting the class. You're going to ask them to leave. Sometimes they're going to be like, no, I'm not leaving. Just trying to get them out of

the class sometimes is very disruptive. That student also has the right to learn, by the way. That's another issue altogether. They have the right to an education as well. So just kicking them out of the school is not in and of itself an answer, but teachers feel very unsupported by administration when it comes to student behavior issues. Yes, 100%. I'm so glad I had made a note to mention the administrator part of this because a lot of teachers told me that administrators are punting the disciplinary responsibilities and putting them on teachers' shoulders.

A Washington, D.C. teacher told administrators several times about a student who attacked a classmate with a pair of scissors and said he was going to kill him. So she went to the administration. The only thing the principal said to her was, this incident really stuck in your craw, huh? And her consequence was she told the teacher to seek professional development to allow her to, and now I'm quoting, increase your tolerance for chaos. The teacher left the school instead, rightly so. You know, again, it's put on the teacher because the principal was punting it. At some schools, I heard this in California, I heard this in New York. Administrators refuse to even do any disciplining

of students unless the teacher first contacts the parents and the teacher first submits an official referral, which they don't have time to do in their planning period, let alone their entire day. And so a New York high school teacher, an art teacher who has 180 students, I don't know how they can be expected to handle these, frankly, administrative jobs for 180 students. This is what she said to me. She said, if we can't contact parents, we aren't allowed to submit to administrators referrals for students cutting classes, and then we're blamed for the cuts. The referral can be about anything, lateness, fighting, cursing, carrying a weapon, stealing, cheating, having sex in the stairwells, which actually happens, and anything else that could happen in the course of the school

day. Administrators won't take any actions, in other words, won't do their jobs without that paperwork. Yep. I am quite familiar with this exact scenario. I've spent a lot of my teaching career working with students who had chronic delinquency and truancy issues. So this is a huge chunk of the population that I worked with. And by and large, I was quite successful at working with them. But I also can't completely eliminate your child's law-breaking behavior, which carries over into the classroom. What do you hear from teachers? What do they want the public to know? If somebody who's just like a parent now, like I have a third grader, I didn't know any of this. What do you think teachers want parents to know? I think they want parents to know that they are trying so hard, more than parents understand. They are spending the majority of their waking hours thinking about your child and how to reach

your child and connect with your child and improve your child's learning environment, but they're really hamstrung by what's going on politically and by the inadequate resources provided by their district. Teachers want the public to know that they need your trust. You know, teachers are the skilled professionals who are trained and certified to educate students, and we all need to let them do that without second guessing them. And, you know, if you just say in front of your kids, I trust your teacher, that's a big deal, bigger than you think. If you model respect and appreciation at home for your children's teachers, that's not only going to improve your teacher's experience, it's going to directly improve your child's experiences. When you hear someone disparage teachers or see it on social media,

and by the way, social media is another reason that student disruptions are increasing in the classroom because things going on at home or on the streets or whatever, also things going on on social media are going to bleed into the classroom. So we need people to speak up to support educators. We need more and louder pro-teacher voices urgently. Yes, 100% agreed. And we need parents to show up to things like school board meetings and speak on behalf of teachers and to constantly remind themselves that teacher work conditions are student learning conditions. If you are pro-child, you must be pro-teacher, just period. We need parents who encourage teachers. And that can be

as simple as, I love what you just said that you speak positively about children's teachers at home, but it can also be as simple as, this is my favorite trick, to send an email to my child's school principal, telling them about what an amazing teacher my child has. I just did this earlier this year. And then I like sort of blind carbon copy the teacher so that they can see me talking about them behind their back. You know, I don't always want to trust that that's going to trickle down to the teacher. I want them to know that I did it. Hopefully the principal would tell them, but it can be that, that costs the high, high price of free, you know, like that would literally take you less than two minutes. You can just fire off a one

paragraph email. I just want to tell you that Mr. So-and-so is an amazing teacher. My child loves going to their class every day and he's so engaging and I just feel so wonderful that my child is in their classroom. It does not have to be, you don't need a PhD in British literature to write an email to a principal saying my child has a great teacher. Everyone wants to be encouraged at work. If you've ever had a job where your boss never said a nice word to you, it is very discouraging. So everyone wants to be encouraged at work. And that is something that parents can do that is very, very quick, easy, and simple. And there's this whole psychological notion of it's better to give positive reinforcement to behaviors you want to

encourage. And that is true of teachers too. Like they want positive, you're like, hey, great job. Good job at that. I really loved that. My kid loved that activity. It doesn't have to be, you know, this big, this thing that takes you a lot of time. Parents need to step up. They really do. Teachers are out here trying to hoist the weight of the world on their shoulders. And we are, I fear, fast approaching some kind of a cliff we don't want to fall off of if we don't right this ship. I think you summed that up beautifully. I really encourage everybody to read this book. It is, first of all, it's a very quick read. It's not going to be like, well, I've been trying to read that for the last 18 months.

It's a very quick read. It's very eye-opening. It'll really give you a sense of what is going on in your own community. Even if you don't have school-age children, the schools belong to your community and you are directly impacted by the quality of the schools in your area. So I highly encourage people to pick up

and read The Teachers, a year inside America's most vulnerable, important profession. Thank you so much for being here, Alexandra. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you so much for being here today. I think you should read the teachers. We need more people advocating for teachers because as Alexandra said, teachers' working conditions are children's learning conditions. If you care about children, you have to care about the people that teach them. If you care about having safe, prosperous communities, you have

to care about schools. And that means caring about teachers. So grab a copy of The Teachers, and I'll see you again soon. This show is researched and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. Our executive producer is Heather Jackson. Our audio producer is Jenny Snyder. And if you enjoyed this episode, would you consider leaving us a rating or review on your favorite podcast platform? That helps us so much. And we always love to see your shares and tags on social media.

We'll see you again soon.